COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ENGLISH 



LEIGH HUNT'S RELATIONS WITH 
BYRON, SHELLEY AND KEATS 



LEIGH HUNT'S RELATIONS WITH 
BYRON, SHELLEY AND KEATS 



BY 



BARNETTE MILLER, Ph.D. 




$tto fork 
THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
1910 

All rights reserved 



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Copyright, 1910 
Bv The Columbia University Press 

Printed from type April, 1910 



press of 

The New Era Printing Company 

Lancaster, pa. 



©CLA265251 



This Monograph has been approved by the Department of Eng- 
lish in Columbia University as a contribution to knowledge worthy 

of publication. 

A. H. THORNDIKE, 

Secretary. 



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PREFACE 

The relations of Leigh Hunt to Byron, Shelley and Keats 
have been treated in a fragmentary way in various works of 
biography and criticism, and from many points of view. Yet 
hitherto there has been no attempt to construct a whole out of 
the parts. This led Professor Trent to suggest the subject to 
me about five years ago. The publication of the results of my 
investigation has been unfortunately delayed for nearly four 
years after the work was finished. 

I am indebted to Mr. S. L. Wolff for reading the first and 
second chapters ; to Professors G. R. Krapp, W. W. Lawrence, 
A. H. Thorndike, of Columbia University, and Professor 
William Alan Nielson, now of Harvard, for suggestions 
throughout. I am especially glad to have this opportunity to 
record my gratitude to Prof. Trent, whose inspiration and 
guidance and kindness from beginning to end have alone made 
completion of the study possible. 

B. M. 

Constantinople, Turkey. 
March 21, 1910. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I. Leigh Hunt 1784-1823 1 

CHAPTER II. Keats 32 

CHAPTERIII. Shelley 65 

CHAPTER IV. Byron and The Liberal 88 

CHAPTER V. The Cockney School 121 

CHAPTER VI. Conclusion 159 

Bibliography 164 



CHAPTER I 

Revolutionary tendencies of the age — The Reaction — Counter Reform 
movement — Leigh Hunt — His Ancestry — School days — Career as a Journa- 
list — Imprisonment — Finances — Politics — Religion — Poetry. 

Since contemporary social conditions played an important 
part in the relations of Leigh Hunt with Byron, Shelley, and 
Keats, a brief survey of the period in question is necessary to 
an understanding of the forces at play on their intellect and 
conduct. The English mind had been admirably prepared for 
the principles of the French Revolution by the progressive 
tendency since the Revolution of 1688. The new order prom- 
ised by France was acclaimed in England as one destined to 
right the wrongs of humanity; through unending progress man- 
kind was to attain unlimited perfection. Upon such a pros- 
pect both parties were agreed, and the warnings of Burke were 
vain when Pitt, rationalizing, led the Tories, and Fox, rhapso- 
dizing, led the Whigs. In 1793, Godwin's Political Justice, 
with its anarchistic doctrines of individual perfectibility and 
of individual self-reliance, rallied more recruits to the standard 
of liberty, though his theories of community of property and 
annulment of the marriage bond were somewhat charily re- 
ceived. The early writings of Wordsworth, Southey and Cole- 
ridge were colored with enthusiasm for the new movement. 
The agitation and the enactment of reform measures made 
actual advances towards the expected millennium. 

But the excesses of the Revolutionary regime in France 
bred in England, ever inclined to order, an opposition in many 
conservative minds that resulted in positive panic at the menace 
to state and church and property. The reaction swung the 
pendulum far in the opposite direction from justice and philan- 
thropy. The first two decades of the new century continued 
to suffer from a counter-reform movement when the actual 
fright had subsided. During that period, anything which 
savored of reform was labelled as seditious. At the very be- 

1 



ginning of this reaction William Pitt's efforts for the extension 
of the franchise were summarily put an end to, and the House 
of Commons remained as little representative of the English 
people as formerly. Catholics and Non-Conformists were 
denied, from the period of the union of Ireland with Eng- 
land in 1800 until 1829, the right to vote and to hold office. 
Pitt's efforts to frustrate such discrimination in Ireland were 
as unavailing as in his own country, for the prejudices and 
obstinacy of George III, in both instances, neutralized the 
good intentions of the liberal Ministry. The corrupt influence 
of the Crown in Parliament was undiminished except by the 
disfranchisement of persons holding contracts from the crown 
and of incumbents of revenue offices. The wars with Amer- 
ica and with France greatly increased the public debt, threat- 
ened the national credit and burdened with taxes an already 
overburdened people. Oppressive industrial conditions made 
the life of the masses still more unendurable. The rise of 
manufacturing and the consequent adoption of inventions that 
dispensed with much hand labor decreased the number of the 
employed and reduced wages, while the enormous increase in 
population during the eighteenth century multiplied the number 
of the idle and the poor. It is true that the wealth of the 
country became much greater through the development of new 
resources, but the profits were distributed among the few 
and gave no relief to the majority. The government was in- 
different to the sufferings of the poor, to the severity of the 
penal code, to the horrors of the slave traffic. In Great Britain 
the Habeas Corpus act was suspended, public assemblies were 
forbidden, the press was more narrowly restricted, right of 
petition was limited, and the legal definition of treason was 
greatly extended; in Scotland the barbarous statute of trans- 
portation for political offenses was revived ; in Ireland industry 
and commerce were discouraged. 

The re-accession of the Tories to power in 1807, followed 
by their long ascendancy and abuse of power, led inevitably to 
a revival of the questions of revolution and of reform. Lord 
Byron, Shelley and Leigh Hunt were among the leaders of this 
second band of agitators, the " new camp," as Professor 



3 

Dowden has designated them. It was their love of humanity, 
perhaps to a greater degree than their poetic genius and their 
aesthetic ideals, that made these men akin. Of the four poets 
with whom we deal Keats alone was comparatively indifferent 
to the strife about him. 

Besides the political background of the times, personal in- 
fluence and literary imitation enter into consideration in the 
present study. Especially in the case of Hunt, whose unique 
personality has been so variously interpreted, a brief biograph- 
ical review is necessary. James Henry Leigh Hunt was born 
October 19, 1784, in the village of Southgate, Middlesex. He 
was descended on the father's side from " Tory cavaliers " of 
West Indian adoption, and on the mother's from American 
Quakers of Irish extraction — an exotic combination of Celtic 
and Creole strains which never coalesced but in turn affected 
his temperament. His father was an engaging and gifted 
clergyman who quoted Horace and drank claret — a sanguine, 
careless child of the South who made the acquaintance alike of 
good society and of debtor's prisons. This parent's cheerful- 
ness and courage were his most fortunate legacies to his son ; 
a speculative turn in matters of religion and government and a 
general financial irresponsibility constituted his most unfortu- 
nate legacy. His mother was as shrinking as his father was 
convivial, but, like her husband, possessed a strong sense of duty 
and of loyalty. Her son inherited her love of books and of 
nature. Of his heritage from his parents Leigh Hunt wrote: 
" I may call myself, in every sense of the word ... a son of 
mirth and melancholy; . . . And, indeed, as I do not remem- 
ber to have ever seen my mother smile, except in sorrowful 
tenderness, so my father's shouts of laughter are now ringing 
in my ears." 1 

As Leigh Hunt was heir to his ancestry in an unusual degree, 
so in an extraordinary measure was the child father of the 
man. The atmosphere of the home, tense with discussions of 
theology and politics and bitter with hardships of poverty and 
prisons, gave him a precocious acquaintance with weighty mat- 

1 Autobiography of Leigh Hunt, I, p. 34. 



ters and with many miseries. In 1791 he entered Christ's 
Hospital. Like Shelley he rebelled against the time-honored 
custom of fagging, and chose instead a beating every night 
with a knotted handkerchief. He avoided personal encounters 
in self-defense, but was valiant enough where others were con- 
cerned, or where a principle was involved. Haydon said : " He 
was a man who would have died at the stake for a principle, 
though he might have cried like a child from physical pain, and 
would have screamed still louder if he put his foot in the 
gutter ! Yet not one iota of recantation would have quivered 
on his lips, if all the elysium of all the religions on earth had 
been offered and realized to induce him to do so." 2 

His wonderful power of forming friendships — a power with 
which the present study is so much concerned — was first devel- 
oped at Christ's Hospital. As he sentimentally expressed it, 
" the first heavenly taste it gave me of that most spiritual of 
the affections. I use the word ' heavenly ' advisedly ; and I 
call friendship the most spiritual of the affections, because 
even one's kindred, in partaking of our flesh and blood, be- 
come, in a manner, mixed up with our entire being. Not that 
I would disparage any other form of affection, worshipping 
as I do, all forms of it, love in particular, which in its highest 
state, is friendship and something more. But if I ever tasted 
a disembodied transport on earth, it was in those friendships 
which I entertained at school, before I dreamt of any maturer 
feeling." 3 Like Shelley, Hunt had so great an inclination to 
sentimentalize and idealize friendship that sometimes after the 
first brief rhapsody of fresh acquaintance he suffered bitter 
disillusionment. The majority, however, of the ties formed 
were lasting. 4 

s Correspondence of Leigh Hunt, I, p. 332. 

* Autobiography, I, p. 93. Compare the above quotation with Shelley's 
description of his first friendship. (Hogg, Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 
pp. 23-24. 

4 This early passion for friendship, which developed into a power of attract- 
ing men vastly more gifted than himself, brought about him besides Byron, 
Shelley and Keats, such men as Charles Lamb, Robert Browning, Carlyle, 
Dickens, Horace and James Smith, Charles Cowden Clarke, Vincent Novello, 
William Godwin, Macaulay, Thackeray, Lord Brougham, Bentham, Haydon, 



The abridgements of the Spectator, set Hunt as a school 
task, instilled a dislike of prose-writing that may account for 
his preference through life for verse composition, although he 
was by nature less a poet than an essayist. From Cooke's 
edition of the British Poets he learned to love Gray, Collins, 
Thomson, Blair and Spenser — influences responsible in part 
for his dislike of eighteenth century convention and for his 
historical prominence in the romantic movement. Spenser later 
became the literary passion of his life. Other books which 
he read at this period were Tooke's Pantheon, Lempriere's 
Classical Dictionary, and Spence's Polymetis, three favorites 
with Keats ; Peter Wilkins, Thalaba and German Romances, 
three favorites with Shelley. Later Hunt and Shelley's read- 
ing was closely paralleled in Godwin's Political Justice, Lucre- 
tius, Pliny, Plato, Aristotle, Voltaire, Condor cet and the Dic- 
tionnaire Philosophique. With the years Hunt's list swelled 
to an almost incredible degree. It was through books that he 
knew life. 

He left Christ Hospital in 1799. The eight years spent there 
were his only formal preparation for a literary profession. 
He greatly regretted his lack of a university education, but 
he consoled himself by quoting with true Cockney spirit Gold- 
smith's saying : " London is the first of Universities." 5 Through 
his father's connections he met many prominent men in London 
and was made much of. This premature association accounts 
for some of the arrogance so conspicuous in his early journal- 
istic work, which, in middle life, sobered down into a harmless 
vanity. 

In 1808 Hunt started a Sunday newspaper, The Examiner. 
The letter tendering his resignation 6 of a position in the office 
of the Secretary of War, coming from an inexperienced man 
of twenty-four is pompous in tone and heavy with the weight 
of his duty to the English nation. His subsequent assurance 

Hazlitt, R. H. Home, Sir John Swinburne, Lord John Russell, Bulwer 
Lytton, Thomas Moore, Barry Cornwall, Theodore Hook, J. Egerton Webbe. 
Thomas Campbell, the Olliers, Joseph Severn, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Gas- 
kell, Mrs. Browning and Macvey Napier. Hawthorne, Emerson, James Rus- 
sel Lowell and William Story sought him out when they were in London. 
5 Correspondence, I, p. 40. 8 Ibid., I, p. 44. 



and boldness resulted in 1812 in his being indicted for a libel 
of the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV, and in an im- 
prisonment for two years dating from February 15, 1813. His 
elder brother John, the publisher of the paper, served the same 
sentence in a separate prison. They shared between them a 
fine of £1,000. By special dispensation Hunt's family was 
allowed to reside with him in prison and, stranger still, he was 
allowed to continue his work on the libellous journal. At the 
same time he wrote in jail the Descent of Liberty and part of 
the Story of Rimini. He transformed his prison yard into a 
garden and his prison room into a bower by papering the walls 
with trellises of roses and by coloring his ceiling like the sky. 
His books and piano-forte, his flowers and plaster casts sur- 
rounded him as at home. Old friends gathered about and new 
ones sought him as a martyr to the liberal cause. 

But the picture has a darker side which it is necessary to 
notice in order to understand Hunt's personal relations. An 
imaginative and over-sensitive brain in a feeble body had 
peopled his childhood with creatures of fear, the precursors 
of the morbid fancies of later years. From 1805 to 1807 
he suffered from a trouble that seems to have been mental 
rather than physical, probably a form of melancholia or hypo- 
chondria. He tortured himself with problems of metaphysics 
and philosophy. He was haunted with the hallucination that 
he was deficient in physical courage, and therefore subjected 
himself to all kinds of tests. At the beginning of his impris- 
onment he was suffering from a second attack of his malady. 
The injurious effects upon his health of close confinement at 
this time can be traced to the end of his life. After his release 
his morbid fear of cowardice and his habit of seclusion were 
so strong upon him that for months at a time he would not 
venture out upon the streets. Yet in spite of all this and of 
frequent illnesses, his animal spirits were invincible. His opti- 
mism was proverbial; indeed, it was a part of his religion. 
Coventry Patmore tells us that on entering a room and being 
presented to Hunt for the first time, he received the greeting 
" This is a beautiful world, Mr. Patmore." 7 His wonderful 

7 Memoirs and Correspondence of Coventry Patmore, ed. Basil Champney, 
I, P. 32. 



fancy colored his life as it colored his poetry. With his flow- 
ers and his friends and his fancies he turned life into a per- 
petual Arcadia. It has been many times asserted that Leigh 
Hunt was morally weak. His self-depreciation is largely re- 
sponsible for such assertions. It is true that he fell short of 
great accomplishment and that he was guilty of small foibles 
which Haydon exaggerated into " petticoat twaddling and 
Grandisonian cant." 8 Yet the struggle and the suffering of his 
life show more virility and nobility than he is generally cred- 
ited with, and prove that beneath a veneer of affectation lay 
strong and healthy qualities. 

A second lasting and disastrous result that followed Hunt's 
incarceration and that greatly affected his relations with Byron 
and Shelley was the crippling of his finances. While it cannot 
be said that he ever showed any real business ability, yet, at 
the beginning of the trials for libel, his money matters were in 
fair condition. The heavy fine and costs permanently disabled 
him. In 1821 his affairs were in such a bad state that, with 
the hope of bettering them, he left England on a precarious 
journalistic venture, an injudicious step, the cause of which 
can be traced to the lingering effects of his labors in the cause 
of liberalism. From 1834 to 1840 his misfortunes reached a 
climax. He sold his books to get something to eat. The pain 
of giving up his beloved Parnaso Italiano was like that of a 
violinist parting with his instrument. He lived in continual 
fear of arrest for debt. At the same time, family troubles 
and ill-health combined to torment him. 

In 1844 Sir Percy Shelley gave him an annuity of £120, and 
in 1847, tne same year of the benefit performance of Every 
Man in His Humour, he was granted through the efforts of 
Lord John Russell, Macaulay and Carlyle, an annual pension 
of £200 on the Civil List. There were also two separate grants 
of £200 each from the Royal Bounty, one from William IV, 
and the other from Queen Victoria. In his last years there is 
no mention made of want. 9 

s Life, Letters and Table Talk of Benjamin Robert Haydon, ed. by Stod- 
dard, p. 232. 

9 Correspondence, I, p. 272. 



8 

Hunt's attitude in respect to money obligations was unique, 
but well-defined and consistent. It was not, as is often in- 
ferred, either puling or unscrupulous. 10 He was absolutely 
incapable of the Skimpole vices. 11 His dilemmas were not due 
to indolence. On the contrary, he labored indefatigably as 
results show. The trouble was his " hugger-mugger " manage- 
ment, as Carlyle expressed it. He adopted William Godwin's 
doctrine that the distribution of property should depend on 
justice and necessity, and thought with him that the teachers 
of religion were pernicious in treating the practice of justice 
" not as a debt, but as an affair of spontaneous generosity and 
bounty. They have called upon the rich to be clement and 
merciful to the poor. The consequence of this has been that 
the rich, when they bestowed the slender pittance of their enor- 

10 On once being accused of speculation Hunt replied that he had never 
been " in a market of any kind but to buy an apple or a flower." (Atlan- 
tic Monthly, LIV, p. 470.) Nor did Hunt admire money-getting propensi- 
ties in others. He said of Americans : " they know nothing so beautiful 
as the ledger, no picture so lively as the national coin, no music so ani- 
mating as the chink of a purse." (The Examiner, 1808, p. 721.) 

11 Dickens did Hunt an irreparable injury in caricaturing him as Harold 
Skimpole. The character bore such an unmistakable likeness to Hunt that 
it was recognized by every one who knew him, yet the weaknesses and vices 
were greatly multiplied and exaggerated. Before the appearance of Bleak 
House, Dickens wrote Hunt in a letter which accompanied the presenta- 
tion copies of Oliver Twist and the New American edition of the Pickwick 
Papers : " You are an old stager in works, but a young one in faith — faith 
in all beautiful and excellent things. If you can only find in that green 
heart of yours to tell me one of these days, that you have met, in wading 
through the accompanying trifles, with anything that felt like a vibration 
of the old chord you have touched so often and sounded so well, you will 
confer the truest gratification on your old friend, Charles Dickens." 
(Littell's Living Age, CXCIV, p. 134.) 

His apology after Hunt's death was complete, but it could not destroy 
the lasting memory of an immortal portrait. He wrote : " a man who had 
the courage to take his stand against power on behalf of right — who in 
the midst of the sorest temptations, maintained his honesty unblemished by 
a single stain — who, in all public and private transactions, was the very 
soul of truth and honour — who never bartered his opinion or betrayed his 
friend — could not have been a weak man ; for weakness is always treacher- 
ous and false, because it has not the power to resist." 

(All The Year Round, April 12, 1862.) 



mous wealth in acts of charity, as they were called, took merit 
to themselves for what they gave, instead of considering them- 
selves delinquents for what they withheld." 12 Godwin held 
gratitude to be a superstition. 

Consequently, when in need, Hunt thought he had a right to 
assistance from such friends as had the wherewithal to give. 
He accepted obligations, as will be shown in the following 
chapters, much as a matter of course. 13 But even in his worst 
distresses, he never desired nor accepted promiscuous charity; 
and he did not always willingly accept aid even from his 
friends. He refused offers of help from Trelawney. He re- 
turned a bank bill sent him by his sister-in-law, £5 sent by 
De Wilde as part of the Compensation Fund, and $500 pre- 
sented by James Russell Lowell. In 1832 Reynell forfeited 
£200 as security for Hunt. Twenty years later, on the pay- 
ment of the first installment of the Shelley legacy, Hunt dis- 
charged the debt. 14 He rejected several offers to pay his fine 
at the time of his imprisonment. 15 Mary Shelley, who more 
than any one had cause to complain of Hunt's attitude in money 
matters, wrote in 1844 in announcing to him the forthcoming 
annuity from her son : " I know your real delicacy about money 
matters." 16 

In the Correspondence there are mysterious allusions made by 
Hunt and by his son Thornton to a veiled influence on Hunt's 

12 Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Book VIII, Chap. I. 

13 Prof. Saintsbury has very plausibly suggested that a similar attitude in 
Godwin, Coleridge and Southey in respect to financial assistance was a 
legacy from patronage days. (A History of Nineteenth Century Literature, 
P- 33-) The same might be said of Hunt. 

14 S. C. Hall, A Book of Memories of Great Men and Women of the Age, 
from Personal Acquaintance, p. 247. 

16 His feeling on the subject is set forth clearly in a letter where he is 
writing of the generosity of Dr. Brocklesby to Johnson and Burke : " The 
extension of obligations of this latter kind is, for many obvious reasons, 
not to be desired. The necessity on the one side must be of as peculiar, 
and, so to speak, of as noble a kind as the generosity on the other ; and 
special care would be taken by a necessity of that kind, that the gener- 
osity should be equalled by the means. But where the circumstances have 
occurred, it is delightful to record them." (Hunt, Men, Women and 
Books, p. 217.) 

18 Correspondence, II, p. 11. 



10 

life, to some one who acted as trustee for him and who, without 
his knowledge or consent, made indiscriminating appeals in his 
behalf. The discovery of refusals and repulses led him to 
write the following to William Story, through whom came 
Lowell's offer : " Nor do I think the man truly generous who 
cannot both give and receive. But, my dear Story, my heart 
has been deeply wounded, some time* back, in consequence of 
being supposed to carry such opinions to a practical extreme. 
... It gave me a shock so great that, as long as I live, it will 
be impossible for me to forego the hope of outliving all similar 
chances, by conduct which none can misinterpret." 17 

Leigh Hunt's work which comes into the period of his asso- 
ciation with Byron, Shelley and Keats falls into four divisions : 
his theatrical criticism, his political journals, his poetry and 
his miscellaneous essays. The first and the last, although im- 
portant in themselves, do not enter into his relations with the 
three men in question and will not be considered here. His 
political activity is important in his relations with Byron and 
Shelley ; his poetry in his relations with Keats and Shelley. 

In Leigh Hunt's career, the stepmost significant in its far- 
reaching effects was the establishment of The Examiner}* Its 
professed object was the discussion of politics. It contained, 
in addition to foreign and provincial intelligence, criticism of 
the theatre, of literature, and of the fine arts. Full reports 
were given of the proceedings in Parliament. At different 
times, various series of articles appeared, such as the Essays 
on Methodism by Hunt, and The Round Table by Hunt and 
Hazlitt. Fox-Bourne says that previous to Hunt's Examiner 
there had been weeklies or " essay sheets " such as Defoe, 
Steele, Addison and Goldsmith had developed, and that there 
had been dailies or " news sheets " which gave bare facts, but 
that The Examiner was the first to give the news faithfully in 

"Ibid., II, p. 271. 

ls Hunt's work as a political journalist had begun in 1806 with The 
Statesman, a joint enterprise with his brother. It was very short-lived 
and is now very scarce. Perhaps it is due to this rarity that it is not 
usually mentioned in bibliographies of Hunt. 



11 

essay style. 19 It soon raised the character of the weeklies. 
During the first year the circulation reached 2,200, a large 
number at that time. Carlyle said : " I well remember how its 
weekly coming was looked for in our village in Scotland. The 
place of its delivery was besieged by an eager crowd, and its 
columns furnished the town talk till the next number came." 20 
Redding says " everybody in those days read The Examiner." 21 
The prospectus contained a severe criticism of contemporary 
journalism: 22 

" mean in its subserviency to the follies of the day, very miserably 
merry in its fuss and stories, extremely furious in politics, and quite as 
feeble in criticism. You are invited to a literary conversation, and you 
find nothing but scandal and commonplace. There is a flourish of trum- 
pets, and enter Tom Thumb. There is an earthquake and a worm is thrown 
up . . . The gentleman who until lately conducted the Theatrical Depart- 
ment in the Nezvs will criticise the Theatre in the Examiner; and as the 
public have allowed the possibility of Impartiality in that department, we 
do not see why the same possibility may not be obtained in Politics." 

Then followed a declaration against party as a factor in poli- 
tics : party, it was declared, should not exist " abstracted from 
its utility " ; in the present day every man must belong to some 
class ; " he is either Pittite or Foxite, Windhamite, Wilberfor- 
cite or Burdettite ; though, at the same time, two thirds of these 
disturbers of coffee-houses might with as much reason call 
themselves Hivites, or Shunamites, or perhaps Bedlamites." 23 
Although The Examiner thus firmly announced its intentions, 
nevertheless in the heat of political contest it soon became the 
organ of a group of men known as " reformers," who were 
laboring and clamoring for constitutional and administrative 
improvement. It became the avowed enemy of the Tory party 
and its journals, and in particular of the ministry during the 

19 H. R. Fox-Bourne, English Newspapers, I, p. 376. 

20 Harper's New Monthly Magazine, XL, p. 256. 

21 Redding, Personal Reminiscences of Eminent Men, p. 184, ff. 

22 Contemporary dailies were the Morning Chronicle, Morning Post, 
Morning Herald, Morning Advertiser, and the Times. In 181 3 there were 
sixteen Sunday weeklies. Among the weeklies published on other days, 
the Observer and the News were conspicuous. In all, there were in the 
year 1813, fifty-six newspapers circulating in London. (Andrews, History 
of British Journalism, Vol. II, p. 76.) 

28 The Examiner, January 3, 1808. 



12 

long Tory ascendancy; the enemy, at times, of royalty itself. 
The prospectus likewise announced an intention to reform 
the manners and morals of the age. Hunt could write a ser- 
mon with the same ease as a song or a satire. Horse-racing, 
cock-fighting and prize-fighting were condemned; most of all 
the publication of scandal and crime. A passage on advertise- 
ments is humorous and still of living interest: 

" the public shall neither be tempted to listen to somebody in the shape 
of wit who turns out to be a lottery-keeper, nor seduced to hear a mag- 
nificent oration which finishes by retreating into a peruke, or rolling off 
into a blacking ball . . . and as there is perhaps about one person in a 
hundred who is pleased to see two or three columns occupied with the 
mutabilities of cotton and the vicissitudes of leather, the proprietors will 
have as little to do with bulls and raw-hides, as with lottery-men and 
wig-makers." 

The editorials, which occupied the foremost columns of the 
paper, attacked corruption and injustice of every kind without 
respect of persons, currying favor with neither party nor indi- 
vidual, and laboring above all for the people. International 
relations and continental conditions were kept track of, but 
chief prominence was given to domestic affairs. The editor 
warred against all abuses of power in the cabinet and in all 
offices under the crown. In particular he attacked with merci- 
less persistence the Prince Regent in regard to his private life 
and his public conduct, and his brother Frederick, the Duke 
of York, for his inefficiency as Commander-in-Chief of the 
army. 24 His definition of the English Army was " a host of 
laced jackets and long pigtails. 25 He condemned the numerous 
subsidies of the crown, the royal pensions and salaries for 
nominal service. He ridiculed the divine right of kings and 
exposed court scandal and immorality. The chief measures 

24 On the subject of military depravity The Examiner contained the 
following : " The presiding genius of army government has become a perfect 
Falstaff, a carcass of corruption, full of sottishness and selfishness, prey- 
ing upon the hard labour of honest men, and never to be moved but by its 
lust for money ; and the time has come when either the vices of one man 
must be sacrificed to the military honour of the country, or the military 
honour of the country must be sacrificed to the vices of one man." {The 
Examiner, October 23, 1808.) 

26 The Examiner, April 10, 1808. 



13 

for which he labored were Catholic Emancipation; reform of 
Parliamentary representation ; liberty of the press ; reduction 
and equalization of taxes ; greater discretion in increasing the 
public debt; education of the poor and amelioration of their 
sufferings; abolition of child-labor and of the slave trade; re- 
form of military discipline, of prison conditions, and of the 
criminal and civil laws, particularly those governing debtors. 

It is not a matter of marvel that the paper made hosts of 
enemies on every side. Charges of libel quickly followed its 
onslaughts. Before the paper was a year old a prosecution was 
begun in connection with the Major Hogan and Mrs. Clarke 
case, 26 but it was dropped when an investigation was begun by 
the House of Commons. Within a year's time after this prose- 
cution a second indictment was brought because of the sen- 
tence: "Of all monarchs since the Revolution the successor of 
George the Third will have the finest opportunity of becoming 
nobly popular."- 7 The Morning Chronicle copied it, and was 
indicted, but both cases were dismissed. The third offense was 
the quotation of an article by John Scott on the cruelty of 
military flogging 28 but, like the others, this prosecution came 
to nothing. 

The fourth and most disastrous misdemeanor was libel of 
the Prince Regent, a man of shocking morals and of unstable 
character. Before his appointment as Regent he had leaned to 
the Whig party and advocated Catholic Emancipation, but at his 
accession to power he retained the Tory ministry. The Whigs 
were greatly angered in consequence, and The Examiner took 

28 Maj. Hogan, an Irishman in the English Army, unable to gain pro- 
motion by the customary method of purchase, after a personal appeal to the 
Duke of York, commander-in-chief of the army, gave an account of his 
grievences in a pamphlet entitled, Appeal to the Public and a Farewell Ad- 
dress to the Army. Before it appeared Mrs. Clarke, the mistress of the 
Duke of York, sent Maj. Hogan £500 to suppress it. He returned the money 
and made public the offer. The subsequent investigation showed that Mrs. 
Clarke was in the habit of securing through her influence with the com- 
mander-in-chief promotion for those who would pay her for it. After 
these disclosures, the Duke resigned. The Examiner sturdily supported 
Maj. Hogan as one who refused to owe promotion " to low intrigue or 
petticoat influence." It likened Mrs. Clarke to Mme. Du Barry and called 
the Duke her tool. 

"The Examiner, October 8, 1809. ^ Ibid., March 31, 1811. 



14 

it upon itself to voice their indignation. 29 At a dinner given at 
the Freemason's Tavern on St. Patrick's day, March 22, 1812, 
Lord Moira, an old friend of the Prince's, omitted mentioning 
him in his speech. Later, when a toast was proposed to the 
Prince, it was greeted with hisses. Mr. Sheridan, because of 
Lord Moira's omission, spoke later in the evening in defense 
of the Regent, but he, too, was received with hisses. The 
Morning Chronicle reported the dinner; the Morning Post re- 
plied with fulsome praise of the Prince; The Examiner with 
its usual alacrity joined in the fray and took sides with the 
Chronicle, dissecting, phrase by phrase, the adulation heaped 
upon the Prince by the Post. The following is the bitterest 
part of the polemic against him : 

" What person, unacquainted with the true state of the case, would im- 
agine, in reading these astounding eulogies, that this ' Glory of the people ' 
was the subject of millions of shrugs and reproaches ! — that this ' Pro- 
tector of the arts' had named a wretched foreigner his historical painter, 
in disparagement or in ignorance of the merits of his own countrymen ! — 
that this ' Maecenas of the age ' patronized not a single deserving writer ! — 
that this ' Breather of eloquence ' could not say a few decent extempore 
words, if we are to judge, at least, from what he said to his regiment on 
its embarkation for Portugal ! — that this ' Conqueror of hearts ' was the 
disappointer of hopes ! — that this ' Exciter of desire ' [bravo ! Messieurs 
of the Post!] — this 'Adonis in loveliness', was a corpulent man of fifty! — 
in short, this delightful, blissful, wise, pleasurable, honourable, virtuous, 
true and immortal prince, was a violator of his word, a libertine over head 
and ears in disgrace, a dispiser of domestic ties, the companion of gamblers 
and demireps, a man who has just closed half a century without one single 
claim on the gratitude of his country, or the respect of posterity ! " 30 

29 " Surely it is too gross to suppose that the Prince of Wales, the friend 
of Fox, can have been affecting habits of thinking, and indulging habits 
of intimacy, which he is to give up at a moment's notice for nobody knows 
what : — surely it cannot be, that the Prince Regent, the Whig Prince, the 
friend of Ireland — the friend of Fox, — the liberal, the tolerant, experienced 
large-minded Heir Apparent, can retain in power the very men, against 
whose opinions he has repeatedly declared himself, and whose retention in 
power hitherto he has explicitly stated to be owing solely to a feeling 
of delicacy with respect to his father." {The Examiner, February 28, 
1812.) 

30 The Examiner, March 12, 1812. The contention beween Canon Ainger 
and Mr. Gosse in respect to Charles Lamb's supposed part in this libel 
is set forth in The Athenaeum of March 23, 1889. Mr. Gosse's evidence 
came through Robert Browning from John Forster, who first told Brown- 
ing as early as 1837 that Lamb was concerned in it. 



15 

It was said that the chief offense was given by the statement 
that " this ' Adonis in loveliness ' was a corpulent man of 
fifty." The article, although true, was of doubtful expediency 
and offensively violent and personal. Further, the unremitting 
attacks of The Examiner had been neither dignified nor charit- 
able in their searchlight penetration into the Prince's private 
affairs. 31 An indictment for libel naturally followed at once. 
Lord Brougham's " masterly defense " 32 failed to avert the de- 
termined efforts of the prosecution to make an example of the 
editor and the publisher of The Examiner. They were sen- 
tenced to the imprisonment and fine already mentioned. They 
refused all overtures for alleviation of the sentence: — over- 
tures from the government ; from the Whigs who, in the per- 
son of Perry of the Morning Chronicle, proposed to obtain a 
compromise from the prosecution by threatening the Regent 
with the publication of state secrets from friends ; and even 
from a juror who offered to pay the fine. Leigh Hunt wrote : 
" I am an Englishman setting an example to my children and 
my country; and it would be hard, under all these circum- 
stances, if I could not suffer my extremity rather than disgrace 
myself by effeminate lamentation or worse compromise." 33 
The two Hunts thought that the serving of the sentence would 
be beneficial to the liberal cause, particularly in increasing the 
freedom of the press. 

The general method of The Examiner was vigorous attack. 
There was no circumlocution, no mincing of language, but 
aggressive candour, and, when it was considered necessary, 
wholesale censure and vituperation. A typical illustration is 
given in this passage, describing a dinner of the Common 
Council : 

" It is the fashion just now to call Bonaparte Antichrist, the Beast 
with Seven Heads and Ten Horns, . . . but if you wish to see those who 
have the ' real mark of the beast ' upon them, go to a City dinner, and 

31 Mr. Monkhouse says that it was then politically unjustifiable {Life of 
Leigh Hunt, p. 88.) 

32 Brougham wrote of his intended defense, " it will be a thousand times 
more unpleasant than the libel." For a narration of his friendship for 
Hunt, see Temple Bar, June, 1876. 

33 The Examiner, February 7, 1813. 



16 

after battles for trout and the bufferings for turtle, after the rattling of 
wine glasses and plethoric throats, after the swillings and the gormandizings, 
and the maudlin hobs-and-nobs, and the disquisitions on smothered rabbits, 
and the bloated hectics, and the blinking eyes and slurred voices, and the 
hiccups, the rantings, and the roars, hear an unwieldy Loan-jobber des- 
canting on our Glorious King and Unshaken Constitution. The stranger, 
that after this sight, goes to see the beasts in the Tower, is an enemy to 
all true climax." 3 * 

In actual results The Examiner accomplished a great deal 
in the counter movement for reform. While Hunt had no 
original or constructive political theory, little power of philo- 
sophical or logical thought, and no special equipment besides 
wide general knowledge, he had great sincerity and courage 
and a defiant attitude toward corruption of all kinds. 35 He 
was himself absolutely incorruptible. If he preferred any 
form of government above another — for he was more inter- 
ested in the pure administration of an established government 
than in the form itself — his preference was for a liberal 
monarchy. Notwithstanding this moderate attitude, The 
Examiner was accused of radical, even revolutionary opinions. 
It was charged with being an enemy of the constitution, a 
traitor to the king, a foe to the established church. 36 Hunt's 
positive achievement in political journalism was two- fold: he 
obtained additional freedom for the press and he elevated jour- 
nalistic style to a literary level. Monkhouse says that Hunt 
" established for the first time a paper which fought, and fought 
effectively, with prejudice and privilege, with superstition and 
tyranny, which was a bearer of light to all men of Liberal prin- 
ciples in that country, and set the example of the independent 
thought and fearless expression of opinion, which has since 
become the very light and power of the press." 37 Of the Hunt 
brothers Coventry Patmore writes : " I verily believe that, with- 
out the manly firmness, the immaculate political honesty, and 
the vigorous good sense of the one, and the exquisite genius 
and varied accomplishments, guided by the all-pervading and 
all-embracing humanity of the other, we should at this moment 

Si The Examiner, December 10, 1809. 

55 Correspondence, I, p. 179. 36 The Reflector I, p. 5. 

" Monkhouse, Life of Leigh Hunt, p. 79. 



17 

have been without many of those writers and thinkers on 
whose unceasing efforts the slow but sure march of our polit- 
ical, and with it, our social regeneration as a people mainly 
depends." 38 

Hunt assisted in bringing about reforms in the interest of 
the people by calling attention to abuses that demanded inves- 
tigation, and by advocating correction. His ideas on national 
finance and practical administration are wonderful when con- 
trasted with his inefficiency in his own affairs. He lacked 
largeness of perspective and masculine grasp. His work is all 
the more remarkable when his temperament and tastes are con- 
sidered ; for his was a nature, as Professor Dowden has put it, 
" framed less for the rough and tumble of English radical poli- 
tics than for ' dance and Provencal Song and sunburnt mirth.' " 
As a factor in the reform movement begun in the first decade 
of the nineteenth century Leigh Hunt has not yet come into his 
own. 39 His was no cosmic theory, nor search after the origin 
of evil, nor magnificent rebellion like Shelley's and Byron's ; 
but in his own smaller way he played as courageous and as 
effective a part in the cause of liberty as those greater spirits. 40 

In 1810, the two brothers had established a quarterly, The 
Reflector, of much the same nature and creed as The Examiner. 
It was unsuccessful and was discontinued after the fourth 

88 Patmore, My Friends and Acquaintance, III, p. 101. 

59 The Edinburgh Revieiv of May, 1823, in an article entitled The Peri- 
odical Press ranked Hunt next to Cobbett in talent and The Examiner 
as the ablest and most respectable of weekly publications, when allowance 
had been made for the occasional twaddle and flippancy, the mawkishness 
about firesides and Bonaparte, and the sickly sonnet-writing. 

40 Mazzini wrote Hunt : " Your name is known to many of my Country- 
men ; it would no doubt impart an additional value to the thoughts em- 
bodied in the League. [International League.] It is the name not only 
of a patriot, but of a high literary man and a poet. It would show at once 
that natural questions are questions not of merely political tendencies, but 
of feeling, eternal trust, and Godlike poetry. It would show that poets 
understand their active mission down here, and that they are also prophets 
and apostles of things to come. I was told only to-day that you had been 
asked to be a member of the League's Council, and feel a want to ex- 
press the joy I too would feel at your assent." {Comhill Magazine, LXV, 
p. 480 ff.) 



18 

number. It differed from its predecessor in combining litera- 
ture with politics. Hunt's reason for this innovation displays 
a rare power to judge of contemporary movements: " Politics, 
in times like these, should naturally take the lead in periodical 
discussion, because they have an importance almost unexam- 
pled in history, and because they are now, in their turn, exhib- 
iting their reaction upon literature, as literature in the preced- 
ing age exhibited its action upon them."* 1 

Although Hunt continued to be editor of The Examiner until 
he went to Italy in 1822, his aggressive political activity seemed 
to die out of him after his release from prison. He was never 
so prominently again before the public; in 1828, he ceased 
altogether to write on political questions. He retired more and 
more into the seclusion of his books, and from about 1849, 
denied himself to all but a small circle of congenial spirits. 

Hunt, like the others of his group, was deeply influenced by 
the liberal movement in religion as well as in politics. He had 
seen his father's progress from the Anglican Church through 
the Unitarian 42 to the Universalist. At the age of twelve he 
repudiated the doctrine of eternal punishment and declared 
himself a believer in the " exclusive goodness of futurity." In 
his early manhood he decried the superstition of Catholicism, 
the intolerance of Calvinism, and the emotionality of Method- 
ism. Yet he acknowledged a Great First Cause and a Divine 
Paternity. He refused, like Shelley, to recognize the existence 
of evil, and thought everything finally good and beautiful in 
nature. 43 He believed that universal happiness would come 

41 The Reflector, I, p. 5. 

42 Hunt accepted the Monthly Repository in 1837 as a gift from W. J. 
Fox in order to free it from Unitarian influence. Carlyle, Landor, Brown- 
ing and Miss Martineau were contributors. 

43 (1) "Besides, it is my firm belief — as firm as the absence of positive, 
tangible proof can let it be (and if we had that, we should all kill ourselves, 
like Plato's scholars, and go and enjoy heaven at once), that whatsoever 
of just and affectionate the mind of man is made by nature to desire, is 
made by her to be realized, and that this is the special good, beauty and 
glory of that illimitable thing called space — in her there is room for every- 
thing." Correspondence, II, p. 57. 

(2) And Faith, some day, will all in love be shown. (" Abraham and 
the Fire-Worshipper," (Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt, 1857, p. 135.) 



19 

about through individual excellence, through performance of 
duty and avoidance of excess. Those who disagreed with him 
in this respect he considered blasphemers of nature. As Lord 
Houghton in his address in the cemetery of Kensal Green on 
the unveiling of a bust of Hunt remarked, he had an " absolute 
superstition for good." Similar testimony was borne by R. H. 
Home when he said that Chaucer's " 'Ah, benedicite ' was fall- 
ing forever from his lips." 44 His religion was one of charity 
and cheerfulness, of love and truth, which is but to affirm that 
the humanitarian moral of Abou Ben Adhcm was realized in 
his own life. 45 On the death of Shelley's child William, Hunt 
wrote to the bereaved father : " I do not know that a soul is 
born with us; but we seem, to me, to attain to a soul, some 
later, some earlier ; and when we have got that, there is a look 
in our eye, a sympathy in our cheerfulness, and a yearning and 
grave beauty in our thoughtfulness that seems to say, ' Our 
mortal dress may fall off when it will ; our trunk and our leaves 
may go ; we have shot up our blossom into an immortal air." 46 

Hunt, like Byron and Shelley, had curious ideas about the 
relation of the sexes, ideas which Hazlitt said, were " always 
coming out like a rash." 47 This " crotchet " was taken over 
likewise from Godwin, who thought it checked the progress of 
the mind for one individual to be obliged to live for a long 
period in conformity to the desires of another and therefore 
disapproved of the marriage relation. But, like Godwin and 
Shelley, Hunt bowed to the conventions. His life was a sin- 
gularly pure one. 

The influence of Hunt's poetry upon Keats and Shelley, in 
its general romantic tendencies, particularly in respect to dic- 
tion and metre, deserves equal consideration with the influence 
of his politics upon Shelley and Byron. Juvenilia, a. volume of 

44 A New Spirit of the Age, II, p. 183. 

45 Hunt wrote two religious books, Christianism and Religion of the 
Heart. The second, which is an expansion of the first, contains a ritual 
of daily and weekly service. For the most part it contains reflections on 
duty and service. 

49 Correspondence, I, p. 130. 

47 Bryan Waller Proctor (Barry Cornwall), An Autobiographical Frag- 
ment and Biographical Notes, p. 197. 



20 

Hunt's poems collected by his father and issued by subscrip- 
tion in 1801 contains original work and translations which show 
wide reading for a boy of seventeen and some fluency in versi- 
fication. Otherwise the writer's own opinion in 1850 is cor- 
rect : " My work was a heap of imitations, all but absolutely 
worthless. ... I wrote ' odes ' because Collins and Gray had 
written them, ' pastorals ' because Pope had written them, 
' blank verse ' because Akenside and Thomson had written 
blank verse, and a ' Palace of Pleasure ' because Spenser had 
written a ' Bower of Bliss.' " 48 Hunt's chief defect in taste, 
that of introducing in the midst of highly poetical conceptions, 
disagreeable physical conditions or symptoms, is as conspicu- 
ous in this volume 49 as in his more mature work. 

The Feast of the Poets, 1814, 50 is a light satire in the manner 
of Sir John Suckling's Session of the Poets. It spares few 
poets since the days of Milton and Dryden, and it includes in 
its revilings most of Hunt's contemporaries. Gifford, the 
editor of the Quarterly Review, comes in for the worst casti- 
gation. It is not remarkable that the satire antagonized people 
on every side in the literary world as The Examiner had done 
in the political. Hunt believed that " its offences, both of com- 
mission and of omission, gave rise to some of the most invet- 
erate enmities" of his life. 51 It is important in the history to 
be discussed in a later chapter of the literary feud which re- 
sulted in the creation of the so-called Cockney School. Later 
revisions included some poets who had been intentionally 
ignored at first in both poems and notes, or who, like Shelley 
and Keats, naturally would not have been included in the 1814 
edition ; and it softened down the harsh criticism of those who 
were unfortunate enough to have been included, except Gifford, 
whom Hunt could never forgive. The irony is fresh and there 
are occasional spicy flashes of wit. The narrative is clear and 
the characterization vivid. Byron pronounced it " the best 
Session we have." 52 

48 Autobiography, I, p. 119— 120. 

*• A Morning Walk and View; Sonnet on the Sickness of Eliza. 
60 It had appeared previously in The Reflector, No. 4, article 10. In the 
separate edition it was expanded and 126 pages of notes were added. 
51 Poetical Works, 1832, preface, p. 48. 
5 " Byron, Letters and Journals, III, p. 28, February 9, 1814. 



21 

The Descent of Liberty, 53 1815, is a masque celebrating the 
triumph of Liberty, in the person of the Allies, over the En- 
chanter, Napoleon. There is little plot or human interest ; the 
natural, the supernatural, and the mythical are confusedly 
interwoven. The pictorial effect, however, is one of great 
richness and color, and some of the songs and passages have 
fine lyrical feeling and melody. It is interesting in this connec- 
tion to note a vague general resemblance between the Descent 
of Liberty and Shelley's Queen Mab (1812-13) in the worship 
of Liberty, in the hope and promise of her ultimate triumph, 
and in the wild imagination which Hunt probably never again 
equalled. It is not likely, however, that Hunt knew Shelley's 
poem at the time he was writing his own. 

The Story of Rimini, produced in 18 16 and dedicated to 
Lord Byron, is the most important of Hunt's works in a 
consideration of his relations with the enemies of the Cockney 
School 54 and with Byron, Shelley, and Keats. Byron criticised 
it severely. Shelley thought it carried uncommon and irre- 
sistible interest with it, but he agreed with Byron in thinking 
that the style had fettered Hunt's genius. 55 Keats wrote a 
sonnet 56 on Rimini in 1817, and in his own works shows unmis- 
takably the influence of Hunt's poem in diction and versifi- 
cation. 

The story is founded, of course, on the Francesea episode 
in the fifth canto of the Inferno of Dante. It was a dangerous 

53 The same volume contained a preface on the origin and history of 
masques and an Ode for the Spring of 1814. Byron said of the latter that 
the " expressions were buckram except here and there." The masque, he 
thought, contained " not only poetry and thought in the body, but much 
research and good old reading in your prefatory matter." Byron, Letters 
and Journals, III, p. 200, June 1, 1815. 
61 See chapter V, p. 19. 

55 Nicoll and Wise, Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, p. 330. 
B6 Who loves to peer up at the morning sun, 
With half-shut eyes and comfortable cheek, 
Let him, with this sweet tale, full often seek 
For meadows where the little rivers run ; 
Who loves to linger with the brightest one 
Of Heaven (Hesperus) let him lowly speak 
These numbers to the night, and starlight meek, 



22 

thing for Hunt to undertake an elaboration of the marvelous 
episode of Dante. Had he been a man of greater genius it 
would have been a risk; as it was, he produced a diffuse and 
sentimental narrative which bears little resemblance to the 
singular perfection of the original. On the other hand, the 
Story of Rimini does possess indubitable merits : directness of 
narrative, minute observation, sensuous richness of pictorial 
description, and occasional delicate felicity of language. 57 
Byron wrote of the third canto which he saw in manuscript : 

" You have excelled yourself — if not all your contemporaries — in the 
canto which I have just finished. I think it above the former books ; but 
that is as it should be; it rises with the subject, the conception seems to 
me perfect, and the execution perhaps as nearly so as verse will admit. 
There is more originality than I recollect to have seen elsewhere within 
the same compass, and frequent and great happiness of expression." The 
faults he said were " occasional quaintnesses and obscurity, and a kind of 
harsh and yet colloquial compounding of epithets, as if to avoid saying 
common things in a common way." 53 

October 30, 1815, in reply to these objections Hunt sent forth 
this defense: "we accomodate ourselves to certain habitual, 
sophisticated phrases of written language, and thus take away 
from real feeling of any sort the only language it ever actually 
uses, which is the spoken language." At the same time he 
made a few alterations at Byron's suggestion. 59 And again 
the latter wrote : " You have two excellent points in that poem 
— originality and Italianism." 60 After the Story of Rimini 
appeared he wrote to Moore : " Leigh Hunt's poem is a devilish 
good one — quaint, here and there, but with the substratum of 

Or moon, if that her hunting be begun. 

He who knows these delights, and too is prone 

To moralize upon a smile or tear, 

Will find at once religion of his own, 

A bower for his spirit, and will steer 

To alleys where the fir-tree drops its cone, 

Where robins hop, and fallen leaves are seer. 

{Complete Works of John Keats, ed by Forman, II, p. 183.) 
5T Lowell said of Hunt : " No man has ever understood the delicacies and 
luxuries of the language better than he." 

58 Byron, Letters and Journals, III, p. 226, October 22, 1815. 

59 Ibid., Ill, p. 418. 

60 Ibid., Ill, p. 242, October 30, 1815. 



23 

originality, and with poetry about it that will stand the test." 61 
In 1818 Byron's opinion had changed somewhat: 

" When I saw Rimini in Ms., I told him I deemed it good poetry at 
bottom, disfigured only by a strange style. His answer was, that his style 
was a system, or upon system, or some other such cant ; and when a man 
talks of system, his case is hopeless ; so I said no more to him, and very 
little to anyone else. He believed his trash of vulgar phrases tortured into 
compound barbarisms to be old English 62 . . . Hunt, who had powers to 
make the Story of Rimini as perfect as a fable of Dryden, has thought fit 
to sacrifice his genius to some unintelligible notion of Wordsworth, which 
I defy him to explain. 63 ... A friend of mine calls ' Rimini ' Nimini 
Pimini ; and ' Foliage ' Follyage. Perhaps he had a tumble in ' climbing 
trees in the Hesperides ' ! But Rimini has a great deal of merit. There 
never were so many fine things spoiled as in ' Rimini.' " M 

Hunt had a distinct theory of language based on a few 
crude principles. As his practical application of them had its 
effect upon Keats, a somewhat full consideration of them is 
desirable here. The first and most conspicuous one, promoted 
by what Hunt called " an idiornatic spirit in verse," 65 was a 
preference for colloquial words. 66 He mistook for grace 
and fluency of diction, a turn of phrase that was without 
poetic connection and often in very poor taste. In dialogue, 
particularly, the effect is undignified. This professed doctrine 
was a fuller development 67 of the statement in the Advertise- 

61 Ibid., Ill, p. 267, February 29, 1816. 

62 Ibid., IV, p. 237, June 1, 1818. * Ibid., IV, pp. 486-487. 

61 Medwin, Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron, p. 187. 

65 In the preface to the Story of Rimini (London, 1819, p. 16), Hunt says 
that a poet should use an actual existing language, and quotes as authori- 
ties, Chaucer, Ariosto, Pulci, even Homer and Shakespeare. He thought 
simplicity of language of greater importance even than free versification 
in order to avoid the cant of art : " The proper language of poetry is in 
fact nothing different from that of real life, and depends for its dignity 
upon the strength and sentiment of what it speaks, omitting mere vulgar- 
isms and fugitive phrases which are cant of ordinary discourse." 

66 Byron, Letters and Journals, III, p. 418. 

CT Mr. A. T. Kent in the Fortnightly Review (vol. 36, p. 227), points out 
that Leigh Hunt in the preface to the Story of Rimini, avoided the mis- 
take of Wordsworth in " looking to an unlettered peasantry for poetical 
language," and quotes him as saying that one should " add a musical modu- 
lation to what a fine understanding might naturally utter in the midst of its 
griefs and enjoyments." Kent says we have here " two vital points on 
which Wordsworth, in his capacity of critic, had failed to insist." 



24 

ment to the Lyrical Ballads of 1798: in Hunt's opinion, 
Wordsworth failed to consider duly meter in its essential rela- 
tions to poetry, and while Hunt himself desired a " return to 
nature and a natural style " he thought that Wordsworth had 
substituted puerility for simplicity and affectation for nature. 
Hunt's acknowledged model for the poem was Dryden, 68 but 
Hunt's colloquial phrasing, peculiar diction, elision, 69 and loose 
expansion approach much more closely to Chamberlayne's 
Pharronida (1689) than to anything in Dryden. 69a The follow- 
ing extract is one of many that might be cited as suggestive of 
Hunt's Story of Rimini: 

" To his cold clammy lips 
Joining her balmy twins, she from them sips 
So much of death's oppressing dews, that, by 
That touch revived, his soul, though winged to fly 
Her ruined seat, takes time to breathe 
These sad notes forth : " farewell, my dear, beneath 
My fainting spirits sink." 70 

Occasionally Hunt's choice of colloquial words fitted the sub- 
ject, as in the Feast of the Poets, where humor and satire 
permit such expressions as " bards of Old England had all 
been rung in," "twiddling a sunbeam," "bloated his wits," 
" tricksy tenuity " or such words as " smack," " pop-in " and 
"sing-song." His poetical epistles suffer without injury such 
departures from dignified diction, but in other cases, of which 
the Story of Rimini is a notable example, a grave subject in 
the garb of everyday language is degraded into the incon- 
gruous and prosaic. It is in physical descriptions that this 
undignified diction most strikingly violates good taste. Ex- 
amples are : 

" And both their cheeks, like peaches on a tree, 
Leaned with a touch together, thrillingly." 

" So lightsomely dropped in, his lordly back, 
His thigh so fitted for the tilt or dance." 

ts Autobiography, II, p. 24. 

89 To be found chiefly in the Feast of the Poets. 

89a In 1855, in Stories in Verse, Hunt changed his acknowledged allegiance 
from Dryden to Chaucer. 
70 Canto, II, 11. 433-440. 



25 

Sometimes the prosaic quality of Hunt's diction is due to its 
being pitched upon a merely " society " level : 

"May I come in? said he: — it made her start, — 
That smiling voice ; — she coloured, pressed her heart 
A moment, as for breath and then with free 
And usual tone said, ' O Yes, — certainly.' " 

Such a treatment of the meeting of Paolo and Francesca in 
the bower is wholly inadequate to the situation and the emo- 
tion of the moment. Additional illustrations of his colloquial- 
isms from the Story of Rimini and from other poems of the 
same period are : " to bless his shabby eyes," " that to the 
stander near looks awfully," " banquet small, and cheerful, 
and considerate," " clipsome waist," " jauntiness behind and 
strength before" (description of a horse), "lend their stream- 
ing tails to the fond air," " sweepy shape," " cored in our com- 
placencies," " lumps of flowers," " smooth, down-arching 
thigh," " tapering with tremulous mass internally." 

Hunt's second principle to be considered is the excessive 
use of vague and passionless words. Instances of such words 
to be found very frequently in his poetry are : fond, amiable, 
fair, rural, cordial, cheerful, gentle, calm, smooth, serene, 
earnest, lovely, balmy, dainty, mild, meek, tender, kind, elegant, 
quiet, sweet, fresh, pleasant, warm, social, and many others of 
like character. 

A third principle was the employment of unusual words; 
examples are found in the Story of Rimini in the first edition 
and in other poems produced about this same time. In the 
Poetical Works, 1832, most of them have been discarded. 
The preface states that the "occasional quaintnesses and 
neologisms " which " formerly disfigured the poems did not 
arise from affectation but from the sheer license of animal 
spirits"; that they are not worth defending and that he has 
left only two in the Story of Rimini, " swirl " and " cored." 
" Swaling " had been the most famous one in the poem because 
of the ridicule heaped upon it by the enemies of the Cockney 
School. 

To use ordinary words in an extraordinary sense was a 
fourth principle. The effect was often extremely awkward. 



26 

Core passes as a synonym for heart; fry occurs in Rimini 
in a strange sense; hip and tiptoe are employed with a special 
Huntian significance. Nouns and adjectives are used as verbs 
and verbs as nouns and adjectives with an unpoetical effect: 
cored (verb) ; drag (noun) ; frets (noun) ; feel (noun) ; pat- 
ting (adjective) ; spanning (adjective) ; lull'd (adjective) ; 
smearings; measuring; doings. 71 

The use of compounds is a fifth distinguishing feature. 
Such combinations are found as bathing-air, house-warm lips, 
side-long pillowed meekness, fore-thoughted chess, pin-drop 
silence, tear-dipped feeling. 

The sixth and last peculiarity is the preference for adjec- 
tives in y and ing, many of them of his own coinage ; for adverbs 
in ly; and for unauthorized or awkward comparatives : examples 
are plumpy (cheeks), knify, perky, sweepy, farmy, bosomy, pil- 
lowy, arrowy, liny, leafy, scattery, winy, globy ; hasting, silver- 
ing, doling, blubbing, firming, thickening, quickening, differ- 
ing, perking; lightsomely, refreshfully, thrillingly, kneadingly, 
lumpishly, smilingly, preparingly, crushingly ; 72 finelier, mar- 
tialler, tastefuller, apter. 

The colloquial vocabulary, the familiar tone, and the expan- 
sion of thought into phrases and clauses where it would have 
gained by condensed expression, give to the Story of Rimini 
a prosaic and eccentric style. Yet Hunt declared he held 
in horror eccentricity and prosiness. 73 

In a discussion of the influence of Leigh Hunt upon the 
versification of his contemporaries and successors it is neces- 
sary to consider not only his theory but also the active part 
played by him as a conscious reviver of the older heroic coup- 
let. In this reaction against the school of Pope, as also in the 
use of blank verse, he showed great independence in discard- 
ing approved models. The notes added to the Feast of the 
Poets in 1814, when it was republished from the Reflector of 

71 E. De Selincourt gives these three last as examples of Hunt's deriva- 
tion of the abstract noun from the present participle {Poems of John Keats, 
P- 577). 

T2 De Selincourt notes that these adverbs are usually formed from pres- 
ent participles. (Poems of John Keats, p. 577.) 

"Byron, Letters and Journals, III, p. 418. 



27 

1812, are important in this connection. They show a wide 
familiarity with modern poetry. He writes : 

" The late Dr. Darwin, whose notion of poetical music, in common with 
that of Goldsmith and others, was of the school of Pope, though his taste 
was otherwise different, was perhaps the first, who by carrying it to the 
extreme pitch of sameness, and ringing it affectedly in one's ears, gave the 
public at large a suspicion that there was something wrong in its nature. 
But of those who saw its deficiencies, part had the ambition without the 
taste or attention requisite for striking into a better path, and became 
eccentric in another extreme ; while others, who saw the folly of both, were 
content to keep the beaten track and set a proper example to neither. By 
these appeals, however, the public ear has been excited to expect something 
better ; and perhaps there was never a more favourable time than the 
present for an attempt to bring back the real harmonies of the English 
heroic, and to restore it to half the true principle of its music, variety. 
I am not here joining the cry of those, who affect to consider Pope as no 
poet at all. He is, I confess, in my judgment, at a good distance from 
Dryden, and at an immeasurable one from such men as Spenser and Mil- 
ton ; but if the author of the Rape of the Lock, of Eloisa to Abelard, and of 
the Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady, is no poet, then are fancy and feeling 
no properties belonging to poetry. I am only considering his versification ; 
and upon that point I do not hesitate to say, that I regard him, not only 
as no master of his art, but as a very indifferent practiser, and one whose 
reputation will grow less and less, in proportion as the lovers of poetry 
become intimate with his great predecessors, and with the principles of 
musical beauty in general. 7 * 

The remarks on Pope close with the hope that the imita- 
tion of the best work of Dryden, Milton and Spenser " might 
lead the poets of the present age to that proper mixture of 
sweetness and strength — of modern finish and ancient variety 
— from which Pope and his rhyming facilities have so long 
withheld us." 75 Hunt closes with an appeal for the return to 
Italian models, and says that Hayley, in his Triumphs of 

n " For ever since Pope spoiled the ears of the town 
With his cuckoo-song verses, half up and half down, 
There has been such a doling and sameness, — by Jove, 
I'd as soon have gone down to see Kemble in love." 

(Feast of the Poets.) 
Hunt calls Pope's translation of the moonlight picture from Homer 
"a gorgeous misrepresentation" (Ibid., p. 35) and the whole translation 
" that elegant mistake of his in two volumes octavo." (Foliage, p. 32.) 

75 Feast of the Poets, p. 38. The same opinions are expressed in The 
Examiner of June 1, 1817; in the preface to Foliage, 1818. 



28 

Temper was " the quickest of our late writers to point out the 
great superiority of the Italian school over the French." He 
protests against the wide influence of Boileau. 76 

The Introduction to the Poetical Works of 1832 contains a 
concise and technical statement of Hunt's theory of the heroic 
couplet. He argues that the triplet tends to condensation, 
three lines instead of four; that it carries onward the fervor 
of the poet's feeling, delivering him from the ordinary laws of 
his verse, and that it expresses continuity. Of the bracket he 
says: "I confess I like the very bracket that marks out the 
triplet to the reader's eye, and prepares him for the music of 
it. It has a look like the bridge of a lute." 77 The use of the 
Alexandrine in the heroic couplet, he avers, gives variety and 
energy. Double rhymes are defended on historical grounds. 
For himself he claims credit as a restorer, not an innovator, 
and prophesies that the perfection of the heroic couplet is " to 
come about by a blending between the inharmonious freedom 
of our old poets in general . . . and the regularity of Dryden 
himself. ... If anyone could unite the vigor of Dryden with 
the ready and easy variety of pause in the works of the late 
Mr. Crabbe, and the lovely poetic consciousness in the Lamia 
of Keats ... he would be a perfect master of the rhyming 
couplet." A study of the heroic couplet from Dryden to 
Shelley based on two hundred lines from each poet has yielded 
the results indicated in the table on the following page. 

Professor Saintsbury says : " There is no doubt that his 
[Hunt's] versification in Rimini (which may be described as 
Chaucerian in basis with a strong admixture of Dryden, 
further crossed and dashed slightly with the peculiar music of 
the followers of Spenser, especially Browne and Wither) had 
a very strong influence both on Keats and on Shelley, and that 
it drew from them music much better than itself. This fluent, 
musical, many-colored-verse was a capital medium for tale 
telling." 78 Professor Herford marks it as the " starting point 
of that free or Chaucerian treatment of the heroic couplet and 

78 Ibid., p. 56. 7T P. 23. 

78 Saintsbury, Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860, p. 220. 



29 





■a ^c» 


Coo 


Alexander Pope, 
Dunciad, 1727. 


Leigh Hunt, 79 
Story of Rimini, 1816. 


s 


00 

If) S* 

s 
to 


00 
00 

2 « 

s 
hi 


d 

8.8* 


2* 

CO 

s 


Run-on Couplets. 
Triplets 


4 
16 

3 

3 


6i 

o 
o 


I 

12 
O 
I 


3 

26 

2 

2 


23 
41 





47 

48 






54 

44 



3 


20 

35 

5 

12 


45 

52 

4 







of the colloquial style, eschewing epigram and full of familiar 
turns, which Shelley in Julian and Maddalo, and Keats in 
Lamia, made classical," 81 Mr. R. B. Johnson calls it " a 
protest against the polished couplet of Pope — a protest already 
expressed to some extent in the Lyrical Ballads, but through 
Hunt's influence, guiding the pens of Keats, Shelley and some 
of his noblest successors. 82 Mr. A. J. Kent says that " No 
one-sided sentiment of reaction against our so-called Augustan 
literature disqualified Leigh Hunt from becoming, as he after- 
wards became, the greatest master since the days of Dryden 
of the heroic couplet." 83 Leigh Hunt's greatest mistake in the 
handling of the couplet has been clearly pointed out by Mr. 
Colvin, who says that he " blended the grave and the colloquial 
cadences of Dryden, without his characteristic nerve and 
energy in either." 84 The late Dr. Garnett said that the ease 

"Hunt, Story of Rimini, London, 1818, p. 11, 200 lines beginning with 
top of page. In the 1742 lines of the poem, there are 47 run-on couplets 
and 260 run-on lines. There are 7 Alexandrines and 21 triplets. In the 
edition of 1832 the number of triplets has been increased to 26. There are 
46 double rhymes. In a study of the caesura based on the first 200 lines 
there are 70 medial, 17 double caesuras. The remaining 113 lines have 
irregular or double caesura. 

*° Keats, Lamia, Bk. I, 11. 1-200. In the 708 lines of Lamia, there are 
98 run-on couplets, 144 run-on lines, 39 Alexandrines and 11 triplets. The 
caesura is handled with greater freedom than in the Story of Rimini. 

81 C. H. Herford, Age of Wordsworth, p. 83. 

M R. B. Johnson, Leigh Hunt, p. 94. 

K Leigh Hunt as a Poet, Fortnightly Review, XXXVI: 226. 

M Sidney Colvin, Keats, p. 30. 



30 

and variety of Dryden was restored by Hunt to English litera- 
ture. 85 Monkhouse pointed out that Keats and Shelley, more 
than Hunt, reaped the rewards of his revivification of the 
heroic couplet. The diffuseness of the diction of the Story of 
Rimini results in a movement weaker than Dryden's and less 
buoyant than Chaucer's. Yet the verse is distinguished by a 
fluency and grace and melody that at times are very pleasing. 
It had a notable influence on English verse — an influence begun 
by others but strongly reinforced by Hunt. Further treatment 
of the influence of Hunt's diction and versification upon Keats 
and Shelley is reserved for chapters II and III of the present 
study. 

Hunt's next poetical work after Rimini was Foliage, pub- 
lished in 1818. It is a collection of original poems under the title 
Greenwoods, and of translations under the title Evergreens. 86 
In the preface Hunt announces the main features to be a love 
of sociability, of the country, and of the " fine imagination of 
the Greeks." 87 The first predilection runs the gamut from 
" sociability " to " domestic interest " and is the most funda- 
mental characteristic of the author and of his writing. In the 
preface to One Hundred Romances of Real Life he declares 
sociability to be " the greatest of all interests." It rarely failed 
to crop out when he was writing even on the gravest and most 
impersonal of subjects. In his intercourse with strangers, this 
same " sociability," added to a natural kindliness and sympathy, 
caused a familiarity of bearing that was often misunderstood. 
The Nymphs, the longest poem of the volume, is founded on 
Greek mythology and is interesting in connection with Keats's 
poems on classical subjects. Shelley said that the Nymphs 
was " truly poetical, in the intense and emphatic sense of the 
word. If 600 miles were not between us, I should say what 
pity that glib was not omitted, and that the poem is not so fault- 
less as it is beautiful." 88 In general Shelley overestimated 
Hunt's poetry, though he saw some of its affectations. Shorter 
pieces were epistles to Byron, Moore, Hazlitt and Lamb — a 
kind of verse in which Hunt excelled, for his attitude and style 

S5 Garnett, Age of Dryden, p. 32. 

86 From Homer, Theocritus, Bion, Moschus, Anacreon, and Catullus. 

87 p. 13. ss Hunt, Correspondence, I, p. 115. 



31 

were peculiarly adapted to the familiar tone permissible in 
such writing - . Among Hunt's best poems may be counted the 
sonnets to Shelley, Keats, Haydon, Raphael, and Kosciusko; 
those entitled the Grasshopper and the Cricket, To the Nile, 
On a Lock of Milton's Hair, and the series on Hampstead. 
The suburban charms of Hampstead were very dear to Hunt 
and he never tired of celebrating them in poetry and in prose. 
No amount of derision from the Quarterly or Blackwood's 
stopped him. The general characteristics of Foliage are much 
the same as those of the Story of Rimini. There are poor lines 
and good ones, never sustained power, and no poetry of a very 
high order. The subjects themselves are often unpoetical. 
Hunt obtrudes himself too frequently in a breezy, offhand 
manner. Byron's opinion of the book was scathing: 

" Of all the ineffable Centaurs that were ever begotten by self-love upon a 
Nightmare, I think ' this monstrous Sagittary ' the most prodigious. He 
(Leigh H.) is an honest charlatan, who has persuaded himself into a 
belief of his own impostures, and talks Punch in pure simplicity of heart, 
taking himself (as poor Fitzgerald said of himself in the Morning Post) for 
Vates in both senses and nonsenses of the word. Did you [Moore] look 
at the translations of his own which he prefers to Pope and Cowper, and 
says so ? — Did you read his skimble-skamble about Wordsworth being at 
the head of his own profession, in the eyes of those who followed it ? I 
thought that poetry was an art, or an attribute, and not a profession ; 
but be it one, is that ... at the head of your profession in your eyes ? " 89 

Other poems belonging to this period are Hero and Leander 
and Bacchus and Ariadne in 1819, and a translation of Tasso's 
Aminta in 1820. The first two show Hunt's faculty for 
poetical narrative and description, and, in common with Keats, 
a partiality for classical subjects. The three are in no way 
radically different from the poems already considered. 

The Literary Pocket Book which Hunt edited in 1820, 1821 
and 1822, the New Monthly Magazine to which he began con- 
tributing in 1 82 1, and the Literary Examiner, which he estab- 
lished in 1823, complete the enumeration of his writings during 
the period of his association with Byron, Shelley and Keats. 
Beyond the contributions of Shelley and Keats to the first and 
the reviews of Byron's poems in the third, they are unim- 
portant here. 

89 Byron, Letters end Journals, IV, p. 238. 



CHAPTER II 

Keats's meeting with Hunt — Growth of their friendship — Haydon's inter- 
vention — Keats's residence with Hunt — His departure for Italy — Hunt's 
Criticism of Keats's poetry — His influence on the Poems of 1817, 

It was about the year 1815 that Keats showed to his former 
school friend, Charles Cowden Clarke, the following sonnet, 
the first indication the latter had that Keats had written poetry : 

" What though, for showing truth to flatter'd state, 
Kind Hunt was shut in prison, yet has he, 
In his immortal spirit been as free 
As the sky-searching lark, and as elate. 
Minion of grandeur! think you he did wait? 
Think you he nought but prison walls did see, 
Till, so unwilling thou unturn'dst the key? 
Ah, no ! far happier, nobler was his fate ! 
In Spenser's halls he stray'd, and bowers fair, 
Culling enchanted flowers ; and he flew 
With daring Milton through the fields of air : 
To regions of his own his genius true 
Took happy flights. Who shall his fame impair 
When thou art dead, and all thy wretched crew ? " 

This admiration, expressed before Keats had met Hunt, was 
due to the influence of the Clarke family and to Keats's ac- 
quaintance with The Examiner, which he saw regularly during 
his school days at Enfield and which he continued to borrow 
from Clarke during his medical apprenticeship. Clarke later 
showed to Leigh Hunt two or three of Keats's poems. Of 
the reception of one of them (How Many Bards Gild the 
Lapses of Time) Clarke said: 

" I could not but anticipate that Hunt would speak encouragingly, and 
indeed approvingly, of the compositions — written, too, by a youth under 
age ; but my partial spirit was not prepared for the unhesitating and prompt 
admiration which broke forth before he had read twenty lines of the first 
poem." 1 

1 Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke, Recollections of Writers, p. 132. 

32 



33 

Hunt invited Keats to visit him. Of this first meeting be- 
tween the two men, Clarke wrote : 

" That was a red letter day in the young poet's life, and one which will 
never fade with me while memory lasts. The character and expression of 
Keats's features would arrest even the casual passenger in the street ; and 
now they were wrought to a tone of animation that I could not but watch 
with interest, knowing what was in store for him from the bland encour- 
agement, and Spartan deference in attention, with fascinating conversa- 
tional eloquence, that he was to encounter and receive. . . . The interview, 
which stretched into three ' morning calls ', was the prelude to many after- 
scenes and saunterings about Caen Wood and its neighborhood ; for Keats 
was suddenly made a familiar of the household, and was always welcomed." 2 

Hunt's account of the meeting is as follows : 

" I shall never forget the impression made upon me by the exuberant speci- 
mens of genuine though young poetry that were laid before me, and the 
promise of which was seconded by the fine fervid countenance of the 
writer. We became intimate on the spot, and I found the young poet's 
heart as warm as his imagination. We read and we walked together, and 
used to write verse of an evening upon a given subject. No imaginative 
pleasure was left untouched by us, or unenjoyed; from the recollections of 
the bards and patriots of old, to the luxury of a summer rain at our 
window, or the clicking of the coal in the winter-time. Not long after- 
wards, having the pleasure of entertaining at dinner Mr. Godwin, Mr. 
Hazlitt, and Mr. Basil Montagu, I showed the verses of my young friend, 
and they were pronounced to be as extraordinary as I thought them." 8 

Leigh Hunt discovered Keats, by no means a small thing, for 
as he himself has said: "To admire and comment upon the 
genius that two or three hundred years have applauded, and 
to discover what will partake of applause two or three hundred 
years hence, are processes of a very different description." 4 
With the same power of prophetic discernment, writing in 
1828, he realized to the full the greatness of Keats and pre- 
dicted that growth of his fame in the future which has since 
taken place. 5 Keats's account of his reception is given in the 
sonnet Keen fitful gusts are whisp'ring here and there: 

'Ibid., p. 133. 

* Hunt, Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries ; with Recollections 
of the Author's Life and of his Visit to Italy, p. 247. 

* Ibid., p. 251. G Ibid., pp. 246-272. 



34 

" For I am brimfull of the friendliness 
That in a little cottage I have found ; 
Of fair hair'd Milton's eloquent distress, 
And all his love for gentle Lycid drown'd ; 
Of lovely Laura in her light green dress, 
And faithful Petrarch gloriously crowned." 

The date of the introduction of Keats to Hunt has been 
placed variously from November, 1815, to the end of the year 
1816. He says: 

" It was not at Hampstead that I first saw Keats. It was in York Build- 
ings, in the New Road (No. 8), where I wrote part of the Indicator — and 
he resided with me while in Mortimer Terrace, Kentish Town (No. 13), 
where I concluded it. I mention this for the curious in such things, among 
whom I am one." 6 

If this statement were correct, it would make the meeting 
about two or three years later than has generally been sup- 
posed, for Leigh Hunt did not move to York Buildings until 

1818, and he did not begin work on the Indicator until October, 

1819. Clarke states positively that the meeting took place at 
Hampstead. From this evidence Mr. Colvin has suggested 
the early spring of 1816 as the most probable date. 7 What 
seems better evidence than any that has yet been brought for- 
ward is a passage in The Examiner of June 1, 1817, in Hunt's 
review of Keats's Poems of 1817, where he says that the poet 
is a personal friend whom he announced to the public a short 
time ago (this allusion can only be to an article in The Exam- 
iner of December 1, 1816) and that the friendship dates from 
" no greater distance of time than the announcement above 
mentioned. We had published one of his sonnets in our paper, 8 
without knowing more of him than of any other .anonymous 
correspondent; but at the period in question a friend brought 
us one morning some copies in verse, which he said were from 
the pen of a youth. . . . We had not read more than a dozen 
lines when we recognized a young poet indeed." This seems 

6 Autobiography, II, pp. 27, 59. 

7 Colvin, Keats, p. 222. 

8 This refers to Keats's first published poem, the sonnet O Solitude, if 
I must with thee dwell, published (without comment) in The Examiner of 
May 5, 1816. 



35 

conclusive evidence that the meeting did not take place until 
the winter of 1816, for Hunt's testimony written in 1817, when 
the circumstance was fresh in his mind is certainly more trust- 
worthy than his impression of it at the time that he revised his 
Autobiography in 1859 at the age of seventy-five years. 

The two men, before they came in contact, had much in 
common, and Hunt's influence, while in some cases an inspir- 
ing force, more often fostered instincts already existing in 
Keats. Both possessed by nature a deep love of poetry, color 
and melody, and both " were given to ' luxuriating ' somewhat 
voluptuously over the ' deliciousness ' of the beautiful in art, 
books or nature." 9 At the very beginning of their acquaint- 
ance, notwithstanding a disparity in age of eleven years, they 
were wonderfully drawn to each other. Spenser was their 
favorite poet. Both had a great love for Chaucer, for Oriental 
fable and for Chivalric romance, and an unusual knowledge of 
Greek myth. But even at the height of their intimacy, the 
friendship seems to have remained more intellectual than per- 
sonal, a fact due no doubt to Keats's reserve and Hunt's " in- 
curiousness." 10 Except for this drawback Hunt considered 
the friendship ideal. He says : " Mr. Keats and I were old 
friends of the old stamp, between whom there was no such 
thing as obligation, except the pleasure of it. He enjoyed the 
privilege of greatness with all whom he knew, rendering it 
delightful to be obliged by him, and an equal, but not a greater 
delight, to oblige. It was a pleasure to his friends to have 
him in their houses, and he did not grude it." 11 

Through Hunt, Keats was introduced to a circle of literary 
men whose companionship was an important factor in his de- 
velopment, notably Haydon, Godwin, Hazlitt, Shelley, Vincent 
Novello, Horace Smith, Cornelius Webbe, Basil Montagu, the 
Olliers, Barry Cornwall, and later Wordsworth. 

For about a year following the meeting of the two, Hunt 
undoubtedly exerted the strongest influence of any living man 
over the young poet. Severn said that Keats's introduction to 

9 Colvin, Keats, p. 34. 

10 Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, p. 257. 

11 Ibid., pp. 257-258. 



36 

Hunt wrought a great change in him and " intoxicated him 
with an excess of enthusiasm which kept by him four or five 
years. 12 Mr. Forman says that " Charles Cowden Clarke, as 
his early mentor, Leigh Hunt and Haydon as his most pow- 
erful encouragers at the important epoch of adolescence, must 
be credited with much of the active influence that took Keats 
out of the path to a medical practitioner's life, and set his feet 
in the devious paths of literature." 13 Keats's interest in his 
profession had decreased as his knowledge and love of poetry 
grew. With the publication of his Poems in 1817, and his re- 
tirement in April of that year from London to the Isle of 
Wight " to be alone and improve himself and to continue Endy- 
mion, his decision was finally made in favor of a literary 
life. Hunt's aid at this time took the practical form of pub- 
lishing Keats's poems in The Examiner and of drawing the 
attention of the public to them by comments and reviews. 
Whether he ever paid Keats for any of his contributions to his 
periodicals is not known. 14 Through the influence of Hunt the 
Oilier brothers were induced to undertake the publication of 
Keats's first volume of poems. It is dedicated to Leigh Hunt 
in the sonnet Glory and loveliness have passed azvay. The 
sestet refers directly to him: 

But there are left delights as high as these, 

And I shall ever bless my destiny, 

That in a time, when under pleasant trees 

Pan is no longer sought, I feel a free 

A leafy luxury, seeing I could please 

With these poor offerings, a man like thee." 15 

Hunt replied in the sonnet To John Keats, quoted here in full 
because of its inacessibility : 

" 'Tis well you think me truly one of those, 
Whose sense discerns the loveliness of things ; 
For surely as I feel the bird that sings 
Behind the leaves, or dawn as it up grows, 

a Sharp, Life and Letters of Joseph Severn, p. 163. 

13 Works, I, p. 30. 

14 Mr. Forman, after a systematic search has been able to find no proof in 
either direction. (Works, III, p. 8.) 

15 Works, I., p. 5. 



37 

Or the rich bee rejoicing as he goes, 

Or the glad issue of emerging springs, 

Or overhead the glide of a dove's wings, 

Or turf, or trees, or midst of all, repose. 

And surely as I feel things lovelier still, 

The human look, and the harmonious form 

Containing woman, and the smile in ill, 

And such a heart as Charles's wise and warm, — 

As surely as all this, I see ev'n now, 

Young Keats, a flowering laurel on your brow." 14 

In 1820, Hunt dedicated his translation of Tasso's Aminta to 
Keats. 

In spite of a eulogistic article by Hunt running in The 
Examiners of June 1, July 6 and 13, 1817, and other notices in 
some of the provincial papers, the Poems sold not very well at 
first, and later, not at all. 17 Praise from the editor of The 
Examiner, although offered with the kindest intentions in the 
world, was about the worst thing that could possibly have hap- 
pened to Keats, for, politically and poetically, Leigh Hunt was 
most unpopular at this time; 18 and it was noised abroad that 
Keats too was a radical in politics and in religion, a dis- 
ciple of the apostate in his attack on the established and 
accepted creed of poetry. As a matter of fact, Keats's interest 
in politics decreased as his knowledge of poetry increased, 
although, "as a party-badge and sign of ultra-liberalism," he, 
like Hunt, Byron and Shelley continued to wear the soft turn- 
down collars in contrast to the stiff collars and enormous 
cravats of the time. 19 In religion Keats vented his dislike of 
sect and creed on the Kirk of Scotland, as Hunt had on the 
Methodists. His " simply-sensuous Beauty-worship " Palgrave 
attributes to the "moral laxity" of Hunt. 20 Unless Palgrave, 
like Haydon, refers to Hunt's unorthodoxy in matters of 
church and state, it is difficult to understand on what evidence 

18 Foliage, p. 125. 

17 Colvin, Keats, p. 66. 

18 A further account of the disastrous effects of his partisanship will be 
found in the discussion of the Cockney School, Ch. V. 

19 The Century Magazine, XXIII, p. 706. 

20 Palgrave, Poetical Works of John Keats, p. 269. 



38 

he bases this statement; in the first place, a charge of moral 
laxity is not borne out by the recorded facts of Hunt's life, but 
only by such untrustworthy tradition as still lingers in the 
public mind from the Cockney School articles of Blackwood's 
and the Quarterly. Carlyle said that he was of " most exem- 
plary private deportment." 21 Byron, Shelley and Lamb testi- 
fied to his virtuous life. In the second place, a close compari- 
son of the works of the two now leads one to conclude that 
" simply-sensuous Beauty-worship " existed to a much higher 
degree in Keats than in Hunt, and that so strong an innate 
tendency would have developed without outward stimulus from 
any one. While both men sought the good and worshipped 
the beautiful, Keats, unlike Hunt, recognized somewhat "the 
burthen and the mystery " of human life. 

Keats, during his stay in the Isle of Wight and a visit to 
Oxford with Bailey in the spring and summer of 1817, worked 
on Endymion, finishing it in the fall. The letters exchanged 
between him and Hunt during his absence were friendly, but a 
feeling of coolness began before his return. In a letter from 
Margate May 10, 1817, there is a curiously obscure reference 
to the Nymphs: 

" How have you got on among them ? How are the Nymphs? I suppose 
they have led you a fine dance. Where are you now ? — in Judea, Cappa- 
docia, or the parts of Lybia about Cyrene ? Stranger from ' Heaven, 
Hues, and Prototypes ' I wager you have given several new turns to the 
old saying, ' Now the maid was fair and pleasant to look on,' as well as 
made a little variation in ' Once upon a time.' Perhaps, too, you have 
rather varied, ' Here endeth the first lesson.' Thus I hope you have made 
a horseshoe business of ' unsuperfluous life,' ' faint bowers ' and fibrous 
roots." 22 

A letter written by Haydon to Keats, dated May 11, 1817, 
warned Keats against Hunt, and, with others of its kind, was 
possibly the insidious beginning of the coolness which followed: 
" Beware, for God's sake of the delusions and sophistications 
that are ripping up the talents and morality of our friend ! He 
will go out of the world the victim of his own weakness and 
the dupe of his own self-delusions, with the contempt of his 

21 Autobiography, II, p. 266. 2a Works, IV, p. 16. 



39 

enemies and the sorrow of his friends, and the cause he under- 
took to support injured by his own neglect of character." 23 A 

23 Haydon and Hunt had originally been very intimate, as is shown by 
the letters written by the former from Paris during 1814, and by his at- 
tentions to Hunt in Surrey Gaol. A letter to Wilkie, dated October 27, 
1816, gives an attractive portrait of Hunt, and from this evidence it is 
inferred that the change in Haydon's attitude came about in the early 
part of 1817, and that a small unpleasantness was allowed by him to out- 
weigh a friendship of long standing. After two weeks spent with Hunt he 
had written of him as " one of the most delightful companions. Full of 
poetry and art, and amiable humour, we argue always with full hearts on 
everything but religion and Bonaparte. . . . Though Leigh Hunt is not 
deep in knowledge, moral metaphysical or classical, yet he is intense in 
feeling and has an intellect forever on the alert. He is like one of those 
instruments on three legs, which, throw it how you will, always pitches on 
two, and has a spike sticking for ever up and ever ready for you. He 
" sets " at a subject with a scent like a pointer. He is a remarkable man, 
and created a sensation by his independence, his disinterestedness in public 
matters ; and by the truth, acuteness and taste of his dramatic criticisms, 
he raised the rank of newspapers, and gave by his example a literary 
feeling to the weekly ones more especially. As a poet, I think him full of 
the genuine feeling. His third canto in Rimini is equal to anything in 
any language of that sweet sort. Perhaps in his wishing to avoid the 
monotony of the Pope school, he may have shot into the other extreme ; 
and his invention of obscene [sic] words to express obscene feelings bord- 
ers sometimes on affectation. But these are trifles compared with the 
beauty of the poem, the intense painting of the scenery, and the deep 
burning in of the passion which trembles in every line. Thus far as a 
critic, an editor and a poet. As a man I know none with such an affec- 
tionate heart, if never opposed in his opinions. He has defects of course : 
one of his great defects is getting inferior people about him to listen, too 
fond of shining at any expense in society, and love of approbation from the 
darling sex bordering on weakness ; though to women he is delightfully 
pleasant, yet they seem more to handle him as a delicate plant. I don't know 
if they do not put a confidence in him which to me would be mortifying. 
He is a man of sensibility tinged with morbidity and of such sensitive 
organization of body that the plant is not more alive to touch than he. 
. . . He is a composition, as we all are, of defects and delightful qualities, 
indolently averse to worldly exertion, because it harasses the musings of his 
fancy, existing only by the common duties of life, yet ignorant of them, 
and often suffering from their neglect." (Haydon, Life Letters and Table 
Talk, ed. R. H. Stoddard, pp. 155-156.) 

Haydon said that the rupture came about because Hunt insisted 
upon speaking of our Lord and his Apostles in a condescending manner, 



40 

letter in reply from Keats, written the day after he wrote the 
passage about the Nymphs, accounts for its dissembling tone : 

" I wrote to Hunt yesterday — scarcely know what I said in it. I could not 
talk about Poetry in the way I should have liked for I was not in humour 
with either his or mine. His self delusions are very lamentable — they have 
inticed him into a Situation which I should be less eager after than that of 
a galley Slave, — what you observe thereon is very true must be in time 
[sic]. 

Perhaps it is a self delusion to say so — but I think I could not be de- 
ceived in the manner that Hunt is — may I die to-morrow if I am to be- 
There is no greater Sin after the seven deadly than to flatter oneself into 
the idea of being a great Poet. . . . " u 

To judge from the testimony of his brother George it is not sur- 
prising that Keats succumbed to Haydon's influence against 
Hunt : " his nervous, morbid temperament led him to miscon- 
strue the motives of his best friends." 26 In the last days of his 
life, his suspicion and bitterness were general. In a letter to 
Bailey, June, 1818, Keats says: " I have suspected everybody." 28 
January, 1820, he wrote Georgiana Keats, " Upon the whole I 
dislike mankind." 27 Haydon may have sincerely believed Hunt's 
influence to be injurious because of the latter's unorthodoxy in 
matters of religion. He wrote that Keats " could not bring 
his mind to bear on one object, and was at the mercy of every 
petty theory that Leigh Hunt's ingenuity would suggest. . . . 
He had a tendency to religion when I first knew him, but Leigh 
Hunt soon forced it from his mind. . . . Leigh Hunt was the 
unhinger of his best dispositions. Latterly, Keats saw Leigh 
Hunt's weaknesses. I distrusted his leader, but Keats would 
not cease to visit him, because he thought Hunt ill-used. This 

and that he rebelled against Hunt's " audacious romancing over the 
Biblical conceptions of the Almighty." (Haydon, Life Letters and Table 
Talk, p. 65.) This view, in the light of Haydon's general unreliability, 
may be mere romancing; for Keats, writing on January 13, 1818, gave the 
following explanation of the quarrel : " Mrs. H. (Hunt) was in the habit 
of borrowing silver from Haydon — the last time she did so, Haydon asked 
her to return it at a certain time — she did not — Haydon sent for it — Hunt 
went to expostulate on the indelicacy, etc. — they got to words and parted 
for ever." (Keats, Works, IV, p. 58). 
"Works, IV, p. 20. 

25 Milnes, Life, Letters and Literary Remains of John Keats, II, p. 44. 

26 Works, IV, p. 114. * Ibid., V, p. 142. 



41 

shows Keats's goodness of heart." 28 It is not to be regretted 
that Haydon lessened Keats's estimate of Hunt's literary infal- 
libility, for his influence was most injurious in that direction ; 
but it is to be regretted that he impugned a friendship in which 
Hunt was certainly sincere and by which Keats had benefited. 

In September, just before Keats's return, he seems some- 
what mollified and writes to John Hamilton Reynolds of Leigh 
Hunt's pleasant companionship ; he has failings, " but then his 
make-ups are very good." 29 

On his return to Hampstead in October, 1817, Keats found 
affairs among the circle in a very bad way. 30 

Everybody " seems at Loggerheads — There's Hunt infatuated — there's Hay- 
don's picture in statu quo — There's Hunt walks up and down his painting 
room — criticising every head most unmercifully. There's Horace Smith 
tired of Hunt. ' The web of our life is of mingled yarn.' ... I am quite dis- 
gusted with literary men and will never know another except Wordsworth 
— no not even Byron. Here is an instance of the friendship of such. 
Haydon and Hunt have known each other many years . . . Haydon says to 
me, Keats, don't show your lines to Hunt on any Account or he will have 
done half for you — so it appears Hunt wishes it to be thought. When he 
met Reynolds in the Theatre, John told him that I was getting on to the 
completion of 4,000 lines — Ah ! says Hunt, had it not been for me they 
would have been 7,000 ! If he will say this to Reynolds, what would he 
to other people ? Haydon received a Letter a little while back on this 
subject from some Lady — which contains a caution to me, thro' him, on the 
subject — now is not all this a most paultry (sic) thing to think about?" 81 

Hunt had tried to persuade Keats not to write a long poem. 
Keats wrote of this : " Hunt's dissuasion was of no avail 32 — 
I refused to visit Shelley that I might have my own unfettered 
scope; and after all, I shall have the reputation of Hunt's 
eleve. His corrections and amputations will by the knowing 
ones be traced in the poem." 33 

During 1818, Leigh Hunt in his critical work remained 
silent concerning Keats, probably because of his sincere disap- 
proval of Endymion and secondly, because he realized that his 

28 Life, Letters and Table Talk, p. 208. 

"Works, IV, p. 31. "Ibid., IV, p. 60. 

31 Ibid., IV, pp. 37-38. 

32 Ibid., IV, p. 38, Keats gives his argument in favor of a long poem. 
''Ibid., IV, p. 38. 



42 

praise would be injurious. The attacks on Hunt in Black- 
wood's and the Quarterly had foreshadowed an attack of the 
same virulent kind on Keats. The realization came with the 
publication of Endymion. The article on "Johnny Keats," 
fourth of the series on the Cockney School in Blackwood's 
Magazine, appeared almost simultaneously with his return 
from Scotland, and the one in the Quarterly in September 
of the same year. These will be discussed in a later chapter. 
Suspicions of neglect on the part of Hunt murmured in Keats's 
mind like a discordant undertone, although the friendship con- 
tinued as warm as ever on Hunt's part. Keats was passive, 
without, however, the old sense of dependence and trust. 
December 28, 1817, he writes to his brothers of the " drivel- 
ling egotism " of The Examiner article on the obsoletion of 
Christmas gambols and pastimes. 34 In a journal letter written 
to George Keats and his wife in Louisville during December 
and January, 1819, the old liking has become almost repug- 
nance : " Hunt keeps on in his old way — I am completely tired 
of it all. He has lately published a Pocket Book called the 
literary Pocket-Boo k — full of the most sickening stuff you 
can imagine " ; 35 yet Keats suffered himself to become a con- 
tributor to this same book with two sonnets, The Human 
Seasons and To Ailsa Rock. Again in the same letter: 

" The night we went to Novello's there was a complete set-to of Mozart 
and punning. I was so completely tired of it that if I were to follow 
my own inclinations I should never meet any of that set again, not 
even Hunt who is certainly a pleasant fellow in the main when you 
are with him, but in reality he is vain, egotistical, and disgusting in 
matters of taste and morals. He understands many a beautiful thing ; 
but then, instead of giving other minds credit for the same degree of per- 
ception as he himself possesses, — he begins an explanation in such a curious 
manner that our taste and self-love is offended continually. Hunt does one 
harm by making fine things petty and beautiful things hateful. Through 
him I am indifferent to Mozart, I care not for white Busts — and many a 
glorious thing when associated with him becomes a nothing." 38 

Continuing in the same strain : 

" I will have no more Wordsworth or Hunt in particular. Why should we 
be of the tribe of Manasseh when we can wander with Esau? Why should 

st Ibid., IV, p. 49. ™Ibid., IV, p. 193- ™ Ibid., IV, pp. 195-196- 



43 

we kick against the Pricks, when we can walk on Roses ? . . . I don't mean 
to deny Wordsworth's grandeur and Hunt's merit, but I mean to say that 
we need not to be teazed with grandeur and merit, when we can have them 
uncontaminated and unobtrusive. Let us have the old Poets and Robin 
Hood." 37 

And again: 

" Hunt has damned Hampstead and masks and sonnets and Italian tales. 
Wordsworth has damned the lakes — Milman has damned the old drama — 
West has damned wholesale. Peacock has damned satire — Oilier has 
damned Music — Hazlitt has damned the bigoted and the blue-stockinged ; 
how durst the Man ? ! " 3S 

A parody on the conversation of Hunt's set, in which he is the 
principal actor, carries with it a ridicule that is unkinder than 
the bitterness of dislike, and difficult to reconcile with the 
fact that Keats at the same time preserved the semblance 
of friendship. 39 

" Scene, a little Parlour — Enter Hunt — Gattie — Hazlitt — Mrs. Novello — 
Oilier. Gattie: — Ha! Hunt got into your new house? Ha! Mrs. No- 
vello: seen Altam and his wife? Mrs. N.: Yes (with a grin) it's Mr. Hunt's 
isn't it? Gattie: Hunt's? no, ha! Mr. Oilier, I congratulate you upon the 
highest compliment I ever heard paid to the Book. Mr. Hazlitt, I hope you 
are well. Hazlitt : — Yes Sir, no Sir — Mr. Hunt (at the Music) ' La Bion- 
dina ' etc. Hazlitt, did you ever hear this? — "La Biondina " &c. Hazlitt: 
O no Sir — I never — Oilier: — Do Hunt give it us over again — divine — 
Gattie: — divino — Hunt when does your Pocket-Book come out — Hunt: 
— 'What is this absorbs me quite?' O we are spinning on a little, we 
shall floridize soon I hope. Such a thing was very much wanting — people 
think of nothing but money getting — now for me I am rather inclined to 
the liberal side of things. I am reckoned lax in my Christian principles, 
etc., etc., etc., etc. 40 

Such a dual attitude in Keats can be explained only by a 
dual feeling in his mind, for it is impossible to believe him 
capable of deliberate deceit. He may have realized Hunt's 
affectation and superficiality and " disgusting taste " ; he was 
probably swayed by Haydon to distrust Hunt's morals; the 
suspicions planted by Haydon concerning Endymion rankled; 
but at the same time Hunt's charm of personality, and the 
assistance and encouragement given in the first days of their 

37 Ibid., IV, pp. 12. ss Ibid., IV, p. 90. 

39 Ibid., I, p. 34. i0 Ibid., V, 198. 



44 

friendship, formed a bond difficult to break. Of Leigh Hunt's 
attitude there can be no doubt, for through his long life of 
more than threescore years and ten, filled with many friend- 
ships of many kinds, he can in no instance be charged with 
insincerity. There is no conclusive proof on record to show 
him deserving of the insinuations which Keats believed in 
respect to Endymion, for Haydon is not trustworthy, and the 
opinion of a lady given through Haydon may be dismissed 
on the same grounds. 41 Reynolds' testimony is not damaging 
in itself, and in the absence of facts to the contrary may have 
been wrongly construed by Keats. To the charges against 
himself, Leigh Hunt has replied in the following passage, 
" affecting and persuasive in its unrestrained pathos of remon- 
strance " : 42 

" an irritable morbidity appears even to have driven his suspicions to ex- 
cess ; and this not only with regard to the acquaintance whom he might 
reasonably suppose to have had some advantages over him, but to myself, 
who had none ; for I learned the other day, with extreme pain, such as I 
am sure so kind and reflecting a man as Mr. Monckton Milnes would not 
have inflicted on me could he have foreseen it, that Keats at one period 
of his intercourse suspected Shelley and myself of a wish to see him under- 
valued ! Such are the tricks which constant infelicity can play with the 
most noble natures. For Shelley, let Adonais answer. For myself, let 
every word answer which I uttered about him, living and dead, and such as 
I now proceed to repeat. I might as well have been told that I wished to 
see the flowers or the stars undervalued, or my own heart that loved him." iJ 

Hunt's feeling towards Keats is nowhere better expressed than 
in his Autobiography: "I could not love him as deeply as I 
did Shelley. That was impossible. But my affection was only 
second to the one which I entertained for that heart of 
hearts." 44 

Keats's atonement is contained in the last letter that he ever 
wrote: " If I recover, I will do all in my power to correct the 

41 Haydon attempted also to make trouble between Wordsworth and 
Hunt, by telling the former that Hunt's admiration for him was only a 
" weather cock estimation " and by insinuations concerning his sincerity 
in friendships. (Haydon, Life, Letters and Table Talk, p. 197.) 

"J. Ashcroft Noble, The Sonnet in England, and Other Essays, p. 108. 

"Autobiography, II, p. 42. "Autobiography, II, p. 44. 



45 

mistakes made during sickness, and if I should not, all my 
faults will be forgiven." 45 

Hay don's influence over Keats was at its height in 1817 and 
1818. 46 His gifts and his enthusiasm, his "fresh magnifi- 
cence " 4T carried Keats by storm. It was not until about July 
1818 that a reaction against Haydon in favor of Hunt set in, 
brought about by money transactions between Keats and Hay- 
don, and the indifference of the latter in repaying a debt when 
he knew Keats's necessity. 48 Keats probably never ceased to 
feel that Hunt's influence as a poet had been injurious, as in- 
deed it was, but the relative stability of his two friends ad- 
justed itself after this experience with Haydon. Affairs 
seem to have been smoothed over with Hunt, and were not 
disturbed again until a short time before Keats's departure 
for Italy, when his morbid suspicions, which even led him to 
accuse his friend Brown of flirting with Fanny Brawne, 49 
seem to have been renewed. 

In 1820, Brown, with whom Keats had been living since his 
brother Tom's death, went on a second tour to Scotland. 
Keats, unable to accompany him, took a lodging in Wesleyan 
Place, Kentish Town, to be near Hunt, who was living in 
Mortimer Street. Brown says : " It was his choice, during 
my absence to lodge at Kentish Town, that he might be near 
his friend, Leigh Hunt, in whose companionship he was ever 
happy. 50 In a letter to Fanny Brawne, Keats said Hunt 
"amuses me very kindly." 51 It is not likely, judging from this 
overture, that there had ever been an actual cessation of inter- 
course, notwithstanding what Keats wrote in his letters; and 
the act points to a revival of the old feeling on his part. About 
the twenty-second or twenty-third of June, 1820, Keats left 

45 Works, V, p. 203. t 

'* Keats wrote Haydon, " There are three things to rejoice at in this age 
"The Excursion, Your Pictures, and Hazlitt's depth of taste." (Works, IV, 
P. 56.) 

"Works, II, p. 187. 

"Ibid., V, p. 116. 

"Ibid., V, p. 180. 

-Ibid., V, p. 175. 

"■Ibid., V, p. 174. 



46 

his rooms and moved to Leigh Hunt's home to be nursed. 52 
He remained about seven weeks with the family, when there 
occurred an unfortunate incident which resulted in his abrupt 
departure August 12, 1820. A letter of Fanny Brawne's was 
delivered to him two days late with the seal broken. The 
contretemps was due to the misconduct of a servant, but it 
was interpreted by Keats as treachery on the part of the 
family. At the moment he would accept no explanations or 
apologies. He writes of this incident to Fanny Brawne : 

" My friends have behaved well to me in every instance but one, and there 
they have become tattlers, and inquisitors into my conduct : spying upon 
a secret I would rather die than share it with anybody's confidence. For 
this I cannot wish them well, I care not to see any of them again. If I 
am the Theme, I will not be the Friend of idle Gossips. Good gods what 
a shame it is our Loves should be put into the microscope of a Coterie. 
Their laughs should not affect you (I may perhaps give you reasons some 
day for these laughs, for I suspect a few people to hate me well enough, 
for reasons I know of, who have pretended a great friendship for me) 
when in competition with one, who if he should never see you again would 
make you the Saint of his memory. These Laughers, who do not like you, 
who envy you for your Beauty, who would have God-bless'd me from you 
for ever : who were plying me with disencouragements with respect to you 
eternally. People are revengeful — do not mind them — do nothing but love 
me." 53 

In his next letter to her he says : 

" I shall never be able to endure any more the society of any of those who 
used to meet at Elm Qottage and Wentworth Place. The last two years 
taste like brass upon my Palate." M 

The lack of self-control and the distrust seen in these ex- 
tracts show that Keats was laboring under hallucinations pro- 
duced by an ill mind and body; the letters from which they 
have been taken are unnatural, almost terrible, in their passion 
and rebellion against fate. 

51 That he needed better attention than he could receive in lodgings is seen 
from an account of Keats's condition given in Maria Gisbome's Journal 
{Ibid., V, p. 182), which says that when she drank tea there in July, 
Keats was under sentence of death from Dr. Lamb: "he never spoke and 
looks emaciated." 

53 Works, V, p. 183-184. The quotation follows Keats's punctuation. 

'"Ibid., V, p. 185. 



47 

Keats moved to the residence of the Brawnes. While he 
was here the trouble seems to have been smoothed over, for in 
a letter to Hunt he says : " You will be glad to hear I am going 
to delay a little at Mrs. Brawne's. I hope to see you when- 
ever you get time, for I feel really attached to you for your 
many sympathies with me, and patience at all my limes. 
. . . Your affectionate friend, John Keats." 55 To Brown he 
says : " Hunt has behaved very kindly to me " ; and again : 
" The seal-breaking business is over-blown. I think no more 
of it." 56 Hunt's reply is couched in most affectionate terms : 

" Giovani [sic] Mio, 

I shall see you this afternoon, and most probably every day. You judge 
rightly when you think I shall be glad at your putting up awhile where you 
are, instead of that solitary place. There are humanities in the house ; 
and if wisdom loves to live with children round her knees (the tax- 
gatherer apart), sick wisdom, I think, should love to live with arms about 
it's waist. I need not say how you gratify me by the impulse that led you 
to write a particular sentence in your letter, for you must have seen by 
this time how much I am attached to yourself. 

" I am indicating at as dull a rate as a battered finger-post in wet weather. 
Not that I am ill : for I am very well altogether. Your affectionate Friend, 
Leigh Hunt." 57 

This was probably the last letter written by him to Keats. In. 
September Keats went to Rome with Severn to escape the 
hardships of the winter climate, after having declined an invita- 
tion from Shelley to visit him at Pisa. In the same month, 
Hunt published an affectionate farewell to him in The Indi- 
cator. An announcement of his death appeared in The Ex- 
aminer of March 25, 1821. The story of the personal relations 
of the two men could not be better closed than with the words 
of Hunt written March 8, 1821, to Severn in Rome when he 
believed Keats still alive : 

" If he can bear to hear of us, pray tell him ; but he knows it already, 
and can put it into better language than any man. I hear that he does 
not like to be told that he may get better ; nor is it to be wondered at, con- 
sidering his firm persuasion that he shall not survive. He can only regard 
it as a puerile thing, and an insinuation that he shall die. But if his per- 
suasion should happen to be no longer so strong, or if he can now put up 

65 Cornhill Magazine, 1892. 

56 Works, V, p. 194. 57 Ibid., V, p. 193. 



48 

with attempts to console him, tell him of what I have said a thousand 
times, and what I still (upon my honour) think always, that I have seen 
too many instances of recovery from apparently desperate cases of con- 
sumption not to be in hope to the very last. If he still cannot bear to 
hear this, tell him — tell that great poet and noblehearted man — that we 
shall all bear his memory in the most precious part of our hearts, and that 
the world shall bow their heads to it, as our loves do. Or if this, again, 
will trouble his spirit, tell him that we shall never cease to remember and 
love him ; and that, Christian or infidel, the most sceptical of us has faith 
enough in the high things that nature puts into our heads, to think all who 
are of one accord in mind and heart are journeying to one and the same 
place, and shall unite somewhere or other again, face to face, mutually 
conscious, mutually delighted." 58 

The literary relations of Keats and Hunt will be considered 
under two heads ; first, the criticism of Keats's writings by- 
Hunt ; and second, his direct influence upon them. 

On first looking into Chapman's Homer in The Examiner 
of December ist, 1816, was embodied in an article entitled 
" Young Poets." It was the first notice of Keats to appear in 
print and is in part as follows: 

"The last of these young aspirants whom we have met with, and who 
promise to help the new school to revive Nature and 

' To put a spirit of youth in everthing,' — 

is we believe, the youngest of them all, and just of age. His name is John 
Keats. He has not yet published anything except in a newspaper, but a 
set of his manuscripts was handed us the other day, and fairly surprised us 
with the truth of their ambition, and ardent grappling with Nature." 

In Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries, the last line 
of the same sonnet — 

" Silent upon a peak in Darien " — 

is called " a basis of gigantic tranquillity." 59 

Leigh Hunt's review of the Poems of 1817 60 was kind and 
discriminating. He writes characteristically of the first poem, 
/ stood tiptoe, that it " consists of a piece of luxury in a rural 
spot " ; of the epistles and sonnets, that they " contain strong 
evidences of warm and social feelings." This comment is quite 

5S Correspondence, I, p. 107. 

59 P. 248. 

w The Examiner, June ist, July 6th, and 13th, 1817. 



49 

characteristic of Hunt. He was as fond of finding " warm and 
social feelings" in the poetry of others as of putting them 
into his own. In his anxiety he sometimes found them when 
they did not exist. He continues : " The best poem is cer- 
tainly the last and the longest, entitled Sleep and Poetry. It 
originated in sleeping in a room adorned with busts and pic- 
tures [Hunt's library], and is a striking specimen of the rest- 
lessness of the young poetical appetite, obtaining its food by 
the very desire of it, and glancing for fit subjects of creation 
' from earth to heaven.' Nor do we like it the less for an 
impatient, and as it may be thought by some irreverend [sic] 
assault upon the late French school of criticism 61 and monot- 
ony." But Hunt did not allow his affection for Keats or his 
approval of Keats's poetical doctrine to blunt his critical 
acumen. In summarizing he says : " The very faults of Mr. 
Keats arise from a passion for beauties, and a young im- 
patience to vindicate them; and as we have mentioned these, 
we shall refer to them at once. They may be comprised in 
two; — first, a tendency to notice everything too indiscrim- 
inately, and without an eye to natural proportion and effect; 
and second, a sense of the proper variety of versification with- 
out a due consideration of its principles." In conclusion, the 
beauties " outnumber the faults a hundred fold " and " they 
are of a nature decidedly opposed to what is false and inhar- 
monious. Their characteristics indeed are a fine ear, a fancy 
and imagination at will, and an intense feeling of external 
beauty in its most natural and least inexpressible simplicity." 

Hunt was disappointed with Endymion and did not hesitate 
to say so. Keats writes to his brothers : 

" Leigh Hunt I showed my ist book to — he allows it not much merit as a 
whole; says it is unnatural and made ten objections to it in the mere 
skimming over. He says the conversation is unnatural and too high-flown 
for Brother and Sister — says it should be simple, forgetting do ye mind that 
they are both overshadowed by a supernatural Power, and of force could 
not speak like Francesca in the Rimini. He must first prove that Caliban's 
poetry is unnatural. This with me completely overturns his objections. 
The fact is he and Shelley are hurt, and perhaps justly, at my not having 
showed them the affair officiously (sic) ; and from several hints I 

61 Lines 181-206. 



50 

have had they appear much disposed to dissect and anatomize any trip 
or slip I may have made. — But who's afraid? Aye! Tom! Demme if 
I am." 62 

Leigh Hunt expressed himself thus in 1828: " Endymion, it 
must be allowed was not a little calculated to perplex the 
critics. It was a wilderness of sweets, but it was truly a 
wilderness ; a domain of young, luxuriant, uncompromising 
poetry." 63 

La Belle Dame sans Merci, which appeared first in The 
Indicator,** was accompanied with an introduction by Hunt, 
who says that it was suggested by Alain Chartier's poem of 
the same title and " that the union of the imagination and 
the real is very striking throughout, particularly in the dream. 
The wild gentleness of the rest of the thoughts and of the 
music are alike old, and they are alike young." The Indicator 
of August 2 and 9, 1820, contained a review of the volume of 
1820. The part dealing with philosophy in poetry is of more 
than passing interest: 

" We wish that for the purpose of his story he had not appeared to give 
in to the commonplace of supposing that Apollonius's sophistry must always 
prevail, and that modern experiment has done a deadly thing to poetry by 
discovering the nature of the rainbow, the air, etc. ; that is to say, that 
the knowledge of natural science and physics, by showing us the nature 
of things, does away the imaginations that once adorned them. This is a 
condescension to a learned vulgarism, which so excellent a poet as Mr. 
Keats ought not to have made. The world will always have fine poetry, 
so long as it has events, passions, affections, and a philosophy that sees 
deeper than this philosophy. There will be a poetry of the heart, as 
long as there are tears and smiles : there will be a poetry of the imagina- 
tion, as long as the first causes of things remain a mystery. A man who 
is no poet, may think he is none, as soon as he finds out the first causes 
of the rainbow ; but he need not alarm himself : — he was none before." 66 

Much the same line of discussion is reported of the con- 
versation at Haydon's " immortal dinner," December 28, 181 7, 
when Keats and Lamb denounced Sir Isaac Newton and his 
demolition of the things of the imagination, Keats saying he 

62 Works, IV, p. 64. 

63 Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries, p. 257. 

64 May 10, 1820. 

65 Cf. with Poe's sonnet, Science, true daughter of Old Time thou art. 



51 

" destroyed the poetry of the rainbow by reducing it to a 
prism." 66 The pictorial features of the Eve of St. Agnes were 
particularly admired by Hunt, as one might be led to expect 
from the decorative detail of his own narrative poetry. The 
portrait of "Agnes" (sic for Madeline) is said to be "re- 
markable for its union of extreme richness and good taste " 
and " affords a striking specimen of the sudden and strong 
maturity of the author's genius. When he wrote Endymion 
he could not have resisted doing too much. To the description 
before me, it would be a great injury either to add or to 
diminish. It falls at once gorgeously and delicately upon us, 
like the colours of the painted glass." Of the description of the 
casement window, Hunt asks " Could all the pomp and graces 
of aristocracy with Titian's and Raphael's aid to boot, go be- 
yond the rich religion of this picture, with its ' twilight saints ' 
and its ' scutcheons blushing with the blood of queens ' ? " 
Elsewhere he says that " Persian Kings would have filled a 
poet's mouth with gold " for such poetry. Hunt calls 
Hyperion 67 " a fragment, a gigantic one, like a ruin in the 
desert, or the bones of the mastodon. It is truly of a piece 
with its subject, which is the downfall of the elder gods." 
Later, in Imagination and Fancy, Hunt declared that Keats's 
greatest poetry is to be found in Hyperion. His opinion of 
the whole is thus summed up : 

" Mr. Keats's versification sometimes reminds us of Milton in his blank 
verse, and sometimes of Chapman both in his blank verse and in his 
rhyme ; but his faculties, essentially speaking, though partaking of the 
unearthly aspirations and abstract yearnings of both these poets, are alto- 
gether his own. They are ambitious, but less directly so. They are more 
social, and in the finer sense of the word, sensual, than either. They are 
more coloured by the modern philosophy of sympathy and natural justice. 
Endymion, with all its extraordinary powers, partook of the faults of youth, 
though the best ones ; but the reader of Hyperion and these other stories 

08 Haydon, Life, Letters and Table Talk, p. 201. 

87 In connection with Hyperion, it is interesting to note that the manu- 
script in Keats's handwriting recently discovered, survived through the 
agency of Leigh Hunt. From him it passed into the ownership of his son 
Thornton, and later to the sister of Dr. George Bird. It has been pur- 
chased from her by the British Museum. (Athen&um, March 11, 1905.) 



52 

would never guess that they were written at twenty." 5 The author's versi- 
fication is now perfected, the exuberances of his imagination restrained, 
and a calm power, the surest and loftiest of all power, takes place of the 
impatient workings of the younger god within him. The character of 
his genius is that of energy and voluptuousness, each able at will to take 
leave of the other, and possessing in their union, a high feeling of humanity 
not common to the best authors who can combine them. Mr. Keats un- 
doubtedly takes his seat with the oldest and best of our living poets." 69 

The more important division of the literary relations of the 
two men is the direct influence of Hunt's work upon that of 
Keats. 

On Keats's prose style Hunt's influence was very slight and 
can be quickly dismissed. At one time Keats, affected perhaps 
by Hunt's example, thought of becoming a theatrical critic. 
He did actually contribute four articles to The Champion. 
Keats's favorite of Hunt's essays, A Now, contains several 
passages composed by Keats. Mr. Forman considers that 
" the greater part of the paper is so much in the taste and 
humor of Keats " that he is justified in including it in his edition 
of Keats. He has also called attention to a passage in Keats's 
letter to Haydon of April 10, 1818, which bears a striking like- 
ness to Hunt's occasional essay style : " The Hedges by this 
time are beginning to leaf — Cats are becoming more voci- 
ferous — Young Ladies who wear Watches are always looking 
at them. Women about forty-five think the Season very back- 
ward." 

The Poems of 1817 show Hunt's influences in spirit, diction 
and versification. There are epistles and sonnets in the 
manner of Hunt. / stood tiptoe upon a little hill opens the 
volume with a motto from the Story of Rimini. The Specimen 
of an Induction and Calidore so nearly approach Hunt's work 
in manner, that they might easily be mistaken for it. Sleep 
and Poetry attacks French models as Hunt had previously 
done. The colloquial style of certain passages is significant of 
Hunt's influence upon the poems. A few examples are : 

68 This is, of course, a mistake. 

"For other criticism of the 1820 poems by Hunt, see Lord Byron and 
Some of his Contemporaries, pp. 258-268. 



53 

" To peer about upon variety." 70 

" Or by the bowery clefts, and leafy shelves 

Guess where the jaunty streams refresh themselves." 71 
" The ripples seem right glad to reach those cresses." 72 
"... you just now are stooping 

To pick up the keepsake intended for me." 78 
" Of this fair world, and all its gentle livers." 74 
" The evening weather was so bright, and clear, 

That men of health were of unusual cheer." 75 
" Linger awhile upon some bending planks 

That lean against a streamlet's rushy banks, 

And watch intently Nature's gentle doings : 

They will be found softer than the ring-dove's cooings." 70 
" The lamps that from the high roof'd wall were pendant 

And gave the steel a shining quite transcendent." 77 
" Or on the wavy grass outstretch'd supinely, 

Pry 'mong the stars, to strive to think divinely." 78 

The following are infelicitous passages reflecting Leigh 
Hunt's bad taste, especially in the description of physical ap- 
pearance, or of situations involving emotion : 

"... what amorous and fondling nips 

They gave each other's cheeks." 79 
"... some lady sweet 

Who cannot feel for cold her tender feet." 80 
" Rein in the swelling of his ample might." 81 
" Nor will a bee buzz round two swelling peaches." 82 
"... What a kiss, 

What gentle squeeze he gave each lady's hand ! 

How tremblingly their delicate ankles spann'd ! 

Into how sweet a trance his soul was gone, 

While whisperings of affection 

Made him delay to let their tender feet 

Come to the earth ; with an incline so sweet 

™ I stood tiptoe, 1. 16. 

11 Ibid., 1. 20. u Ibid., 1. 117. 

" 2 Ibid„ 1. 81. 7B I stood tiptoe, 1. 215. 

73 To some Ladies, 1. 15. 7a Ibid., 1. 61. 

77 Calidore, 1. 132. Also pointed out by Mr. Colvin, Keats, p. 53. 

78 To my brother George, 1. 7. 
78 / stood tiptoe, 1. 144. 

80 Hunt quotes this with approbation, as showing a " human touch." 
(Specimen of an Induction to a Poem, 11. 13-14.) 

81 Specimen of an Induction to a Poem, 1. 48. 

82 Calidore, 1. 66. 



54 

From their low palfreys o'er his neck they bent : 
And whether there were tears of languishment, 
Or that the evening dew had pearl'd their tresses, 
He felt a moisture on his cheek and blesses 
With lips that tremble, and with glistening eye, 
All the soft luxury 
That nestled in his arms." 83 
"... Add too, the sweetness 
Of thy honey'd voice ; the neatness 
Of thine ankle, lightly turned : 
With those beauties, scarce discern'd 
Kept with such sweet privacy, 
That they seldom meet the eye 
Of the little loves that fly 
Round about with eager pry." 8 * 

Descriptive passages in the Huntian style are not infrequent : 
the opening lines from the Imitation of Spenser 85 are much 
nearer to Hunt than to Spenser. 

" Now morning from her orient chamber came, 
And her first footsteps touched a verdant hill, 
Crowning its lawny crest with amber flame, 
Silv'ring the untainted gushes of its rill ; 
Which, pure from mossy beds, did down distil 
And after parting beds of simple flowers, 
By many streams a little lake did fill, 
Which round its marge reflected woven bowers, 
And in its middle space, a sky that never lowers. " sa 

These lines of Calidore show a like resemblance: 

" He bares his forehead to the cool blue sky, 
And smiles at the far clearness all around, 
Until his heart is well nigh over wound, 
And turns for calmness to the pleasant green 
Of easy slopes, and shadowy trees that lean 

-Ibid., 1. 80 ff. "To . . . 1. 23 ff. 

83 Mr. De Selincourt in Notes and Queries, Feb. 4, 1905, dates the Imita- 
tion of Spenser " 181 3." He does not produce documentary evidence, how- 
ever. The discovery of the hitherto unpublished poem, Fill for me a brim- 
ming bowl, in imitation of Milton's early poems, dated in the Woodhouse 
transcript Aug. 1814, is of considerable interest in determining the date of 
Keats's earliest composition of verse. A sonnet On Peace found in the 
same MS. is a second discovery of an unpublished poem of the same period. 

88 Works, I, p. 26. 



55 

So elegantly o'er the waters' brim 
And show their blossoms trim." 87 

A third is : 

" Across the lawny fields, and pebbly water." 

Single phrases showing the influence of Hunt 88 are: "airy- 
feel," " patting the flowing hair," " A Man of elegance," 
" sweet-lipped ladies," ''grateful the incense," " modest pride," 
" a sun-beamy tale of a wreath," " soft humanity," " leafy 
luxury," " pillowy silkiness," " swelling apples," " the very 
pleasant rout," " forms of elegance." 

The following passages apparently bear as close a resem- 
blance to each other as it is possible to find by the comparison 
of individual passages from the works of the two men: 

" The sidelong view of swelling leanness 
Which the glad setting sun in gold doth dress " 89 

compare with : 

" And every hill, in passing one by one 
Gleamed out with twinkles of the golden sun : 
For leafy was the road, with tall array." 90 

The Epistles are strikingly like Hunt's epistles in spirit, dic- 
tion and metre. Mr. Colvin has pointed out that the one ad- 
dressed To George Felton Mat hew was written in November, 
1815, before Keats had met Hunt and before the publication 
of the latter's epistles; 91 but Keats may have known them at 
the time in manuscript through Clarke. The resemblances may 
also have been due, in part, as in other points of comparison, 
to an innate similarity of thought and feeling. 

That Hunt's habit of sonneteering and his preference for 
the Petrarcan form influenced Keats, is attested by the simi- 
larity of the latter's sonnets to Hunt's in form, subjects, and 

51 Ibid., I. p. 16. Mr. W. T. Arnold, Poetical Works of John Keats, Lon- 
don, 1884, has remarked upon the similar use of so by Hunt and Keats. He 
compares the " so elegantly " of this passage with the line from Rimini 
" leaves so finely suit." 

88 To Charles Cozvden Clarke, 1. 88. 

89 Calidore, 11. 34-35. 

90 Story of Rimini, p. 35. 

91 Colvin, Keats, p. 31. 



56 

allusions, and by the direct references 92 to Hunt. On the 

92 References to Hunt in the sonnets and other poems of 1817 are the 
following : 

1. " He of the rose, the violet, the spring 

The social smile, the chain for Freedom's sake :" 

(Addressed to the Same [Haydon].) This sonnet did not appear in 1817, 
although it belongs to this period.) 

2. " . . . thy tender care 

Thus startled unaware 

Be jealous that the foot of other wight 

Should madly follow that bright path of light 

Trac'd by thy lov'd Libertas ; he will speak, 

And tell thee that my prayer is very meek 

Him thou wilt hear." 

(Specimen of an Introduction, 1. 57 ff.) Mrs. Clarke is the authority 
that " Libertas " was Hunt. 

3. " With him who elegantly chats, and talks — 

The wrong'd Libertas." 

(Epistle to Charles Cowden Clarke, 1. 43-44.) 

4. " I turn full-hearted to the friendly aids 

That smooth the path of honour ; brotherhood, 
And friendliness the nurse of mutual good. 
The hearty grasp that sends a pleasant sonnet 
Into the brain ere one can think upon it; 
The silence when some rhymes are coming out ; 
And when they're come, the very pleasant rout : 
The message certain to be done tomorrow. 
'Tis perhaps as well that it should be to borrow 
Some precious book from out its snug retreat, 
To cluster round it when we next shall meet." 

(Sleep and Poetry.) 

Lines 353-404 of the same, nearly one fifth of the entire poem, are a 
description of Hunt's library. Mr. De Selincourt calls it " a glowing 
tribute to the sympathetic friendship which Keats had enjoyed at the Hamp- 
stead Cottage and an attempt to express in the style of the Story of Rimini 
something of the spirit which had informed the Lines Written Above Tin- 
tern Abbey." (Poems of John Keats. Introduction p. 34.) 

(a) Of this room Hunt wrote : " Keats's Sleep and Poetry is a description 
of a parlour that was mine, no bigger than an old mansion's closet." 
Correspondence I, p. 289. See also Lord Byron and Some of his Contem- 
poraries, p. 249. 



57 

Grasshopper and the Cricked 3, and To the Nile 94 were written 
in contest with Hunt. To Spenser is a refusal to comply with 
Hunt's request that he should write a sonnet on Spenser. 95 
The title of On Leigh Hunt's Poem, The Story of Rimini 96 
speaks for itself. 97 

To put it briefly, the Poems of 1817 show Hunt's influence 
in more ways than any equal number of the young poet's later 
verses. It is seen in Keats's subject matter 98 and allusions ; in 
his adoption of a colloquial style and diction ; in his absorption 
of Hunt's spirit in the treatment of nature and in his attitude 
toward women ; and in his imitation and exaggerated use of 

(b) Further description of the same room is to be found in Shelley's 
Letter to Maria Gisbome, 11. 212-217. 

(c) Clarke refers to it in the Gentleman's Magazine, February, 1874, an d 
in Recollections of Writers, p. 134. In the letter he says that a bed was 
made up in the library for Keats and that he was installed as a member 
of the household. Here he composed the framework of the poem. Lines 
325-404 are " an inventory of the art garniture of the room." 

(d) The most intresting record in regard to the room is that given by 
Mrs. J. T. Fields in a Shelf of old Books, who says that her husband saw 
the library treasures which had inspired Keats — Greek casts of Sappho, 
casts of Kosciusko and Alfred, with engravings, sketches and well-worn 
books. Among the books collected by Mr. Fields was a copy of Shelley, 
Coleridge and Keats bound together, with an autograph of all three men, 
formerly owned by Hunt. The fly leaf " at the back contained the son- 
net written by Keats on the Story of Rimini." 

93 The two sonnets were published in The Examiner of September 21, 
1817; Keats's had been included previously in the Poems of 1817 ; Hunt's 
appeared later in Foliage, 181 8. 

94 This did not appear in 181 7, but belongs to this period. See Works, II, 
p. 257. For a comparison of these two sonnets with Shelley's on the same 
Subject, see Rossetti's Life of Keats, p. no. 

95 Works, II, p. 166. 

99 Compare with A Dream, after Reading Dante's Episode of Paolo and 
Francesco, 1819. (Works, III, p. 16.) 

97 A pocket-book given Keats by Hunt and containing many of the first 
drafts of the sonnets belonged to Charles Wentworth Dilke. It is still 
in the possession of the Dilke family. 

98 For instances of Keats's interest in politics, see To Kosciusko, To Hope, 
lb 33-36, and scattered references to Wallace, William Tell and similar 
characters. Most of these references have already been called attention to 
by others. 



58 

the free heroic couplet in Sleep and Poetry, I stood tiptoe, 
Specimen of an Induction and other poems. 

Of the poem Lines on seeing a Lock of Milton's Hair, 
written in January, 1818, Keats wrote in a letter to Bailey: 
" I was at Hunt's the other day, and he surprised me with a 
real authenticated lock of Milton's hair. I know you would 
like what I wrote thereon, so here it is — as they say of a 
Sheep in a Nursery Book . . . This I did at Hunt's, at his 
request — perhaps I should have done something better alone 
and at home." 99 Leigh Hunt's three sonnets on the same 
subject, published in Foliage, have been already spoken of in 
the preceding chapter. 

Endymion shows a decided decrease in the ascendancy of 
Hunt's mind over Keats, for the sway of his intellectual 
supremacy had been shaken before suspicions arose in Keats's 
mind as to the disinterestedness of his motives. What influ- 
ence lingers is seen in the general theory of versification and in 
the diction, with some trace in matters of taste. A marvellous 
luxury of imagery, glimpses into the heights and depths of 
nature, an absorbing love of Greek fable, a deeper infusion of 
the ideal have superseded what Mr. Colvin has called the 
" sentimental chirp " of Hunt. 100 Specific passages in En- 
dymion reminiscent of Hunt are rare, but Book III, 11. 23-30 
recalls the general descriptive style in the Descent of Liberty 
and summarizes in a few lines pages of Hunt's diffuse, spec- 
tacular imagery. Once or twice Keats seems to have fallen 
into the colloquial manner in dialogue : 

" But a poor Naiad, I guess not. Farewell ! 
I have a ditty for my hollow cell." 101 

Again : 

" I own 
This may sound strangely : but when, dearest girl, 
Thou seest it for my happiness, no pearl 
Will trespass down those cheeks. Companion fair ! 
Wilt be content to dwell with her, to share 
This sister's love with me? Like one resign'd 
And bent by circumstance, and thereby blind 

9 ' Works, IV, pp. 60-61. The poem follows. 

100 Colvin, Keats, p. 107. m Endymion, Bk. II, 11. 129-130. 



59 

In self-commitment, thus that meek unknown : 
' Aye, but a buzzing by my ears has flown, 
Of jubilee to Dian : — truth I heard? 
Well then, I see there is no little bird.' " 103 

Occasionally there are passages in the bad taste of Hunt, as 
this example: 

" Enchantress ! tell me by this soft embrace, 
By the most soft completion of thy face, 
Those lips, O slippery blisses, twinkling eyes, 
And by these tenderest, milky sovereignties — 
These tenderest, and by the nectar wine, 
The passion — " 103 

Likewise : 

" O that I 
Were rippling round her dainty fairness now, 
Circling about her waist, and striving how 
To entice her to a dive ! then stealing in 
Between her luscious lips and eyelids thin." 104 

In July, 1820, appeared the volume Lamia, Isabella, The Eve 
of St. Agnes and other Poems. The lingering influence of Hunt 
is seen in a fondness for the short poetic tale, in the direct 
and simple narrative style, and in the return in Lamia to the 
use of the heroic couplet ; but that, along with the other poems 
of the volume, is free from the Huntian eccentricities of man- 
ner and diction found in Keats's earlier works. He had come 
into his own. In treatment, Lamia is almost faultless in 
technique and in matters of taste; although Mr. Colvin has 
pointed out as an exception the first fifteen lines of the second 
book, which he says have Leigh Hunt's " affected ease and 
fireside triviality." 105 One of the few occurrences of Hunt's 
manner is seen in the Eve of St. Agnes. 

" Paining with eloquence her balmy side." 106 

The famous passage in the Eve of St. Agnes describing all 
manner of luscious edibles is very suggestive of one in Hunt's 
Bacchus and Ariadne which enumerates articles of the same 

in Ibid„ Bk. IV, 1. 863 ff. 

™Ibid., Bk. II, 1. 756 ff. ws Keats, p. 169. 

101 Ibid., Bk. II, 1. 938 ff. 106 Stanza 23, 1. 7. 



60 

kind. 107 It is in this latter poem and in the Story of Rimini 
that Hunt's power of description most nearly approximates to 
that of Keats. In 1831, in the Gentle Armour, Hunt is the 
imitator of Keats, as Mr. Colvin has already pointed out. 108 

The peculiarities of Keats's diction are, in the main, two- 
fold, and may each be traced to a direct influence : first, 
archaisms in the manner of Spenser 109 and Chatterton ; second, 
colloquialisms and deliberate departures from established 
usage in the employment and formation of words, in imitation 
of Leigh Hunt. Keats's theory so far as he had one, is set 
forth in a passage in one of his letters : " I shall never become 
attached to a foreign idiom, so as to put it into my writings. 
The Paradise Lost, though so fine in itself, is a corruption 
of our language. It should be kept as it is, unique, a curiosity, 
a beautiful and grand curosity, the most remarkable produc- 
tion of the world; a northern dialect accommodating itself to 
Greek and Latin inversions and intonations. The purest 
English, I think — or what ought to be the purest — is Chat- 
terton's." 110 

Keats's Poems of 1817 show Hunt's influence in diction more 
strongly than any of his later works. In the majority of instan- 
ces, this influence is reflected in the principles of usage rather 
than in the actual usages, although words and phrases used by 
Hunt are occasionally found in the writings of Keats. The 
tendency to a colloquial vocabulary is seen in such words and 
combinations as jaunty, right glad, balmy pain, leafy luxury, 111 

'"'''Hero and Leander and Bacchus and Ariadne, 1819, p. 45. 

108 Mr. W. T. Arnold makes the mistake of thinking that Keats imitated 
Hunt's Gentle Armour. Mr. Colvin corrects this statement. (Keats, 
Poetical Works, p. 59.) 

109 (a) W. T. Arnold, Keats, Poetical Works, p. 128. (b) J. Hoops, Keats's 
Jungend und Jugendgedichte, Englische Studien, XXI, 239. (c) W. A. 
Read, Keats and Spenser. 

110 Works, V, p. 121. 

111 This same expression occurs in Hero and Leander, 1819, in the phrase, 
" Half set in trees and leafy luxury." Keats's dedication sonnet in which it 
occurs was written in 181 7. Therefore Mr. W. T. Arnold makes a mistake 
when he says (in his edition of Keats, p. 129) it was taken direct from 
Hunt's poem, although the two separate words are among his favorites and 
Keats probably took them from him and combined them. 



61 

delicious, 112 tasteful, gentle doings, gentle livers, soft floatings, 
frisky leaps, lawny mantle, patting, busy spirits. Among these 
words, leafy, balmy, lawny, patting, nest, tiptoe, and varia- 
tions of " taste " were special favorites with Hunt. A few 
expressions only of this kind, as " nest," " honey feel," " in- 
fant's gums," are found in Endymion, and almost none at all 
in the later poems. 

Keats used peculiar words with so much greater felicity 
and in so much greater profusion than Hunt, exceeding in 
richness and individuality of vocabulary most of the poets of 
his own time, that one is forced to believe that Spenser's in- 
fluence rather than Hunt's was dominant here. Breaches of 
taste are confined almost entirely to the Poems of 1817. 

Ordinary words used peculiarly include "nips" (they gave 
each other's cheeks), " core " (for heart) and " luxury " 113 (with 
a wrong connotation), nouns and adjectives employed as verbs, 
and verbs as nouns and adjectives. These devices likewise 
cannot be credited to Hunt without reservation, since both 
Spenser and Milton used them; but there is little doubt that 
in this instance Hunt was an inciting and sustaining influence. 
Keats resorted to such artifices frequently and continued to do 
so to the end. Instances of nouns and adjectives employed as 
verbs are : pennanc'd, luting, passion'd, neighbour'd, syllabling, 
companion'd, labrynth, anguish'd, poesied, vineyard'd, woof'd, 
loaned, medicin'd, zon'd, mesh, pleasure, legion'd, companion, 
green'd, gordian'd, character'd, finn'd, forest'd, tusk'd, monitor. 
Verbs employed as nouns and adjectives are: shine, which oc- 
curs five times, feel, seeing, hush, pry and amaze. 

IU Mr. Arnold says " delicious " is used sixteen times by Keats. (Keats, 
Poetical Works, p. 129). He quotes a passage from one of Hunt's prefaces 
in which the latter comments on Chaucer's use of the word : " The word 
deliriously is a venture of animal spirits which in a modern writer some 
critics would pronounce to be too affected or too familiar; but the enjoy- 
ment, and even incidental appropriateness and relish of it, will be obvious 
to finer senses." In Rimini this line occurs : " Distils the next note more 
deliciously." 

114 Palgrave, Poetical Works of John Keats, p. 261, notices Leigh Hunt's 
misuse of this word in his review of / stood tiptoe, quoted on p. 107. 
See his use of the same on p. 76. In Bacchus and Ariadne it occurs in this 
passage " all luxuries that come from odorous gardens." 



62 

More examples of coined compounds, nouns and adjectives, 
are to be found in Keats than in Hunt ; in his better work 
as well as in his early productions. A few are : cirque- 
couchant, milder-mooned, tress-lifting, flitter-winged, silk- 
pillowed, death-neighing, break-covert, palsy-twitching, high- 
sorrowful, sea-foamy, amber-fretted, sweet-lipped, lush- 
leaved. 

The last principle is the coining, or choice of, adjectives in y 
and ing; of adverbs in ly, when, in many instances, adjectives 
and adverbs already existed formed on the same stem. The 
frequent use of words with these weak endings gives a very 
diffuse effect at times in Keats's early poems. The following 
are examples : fenny, fledgy, rushy, lawny, liny, nervy, pipy, 
paly, palmy, towery, sluicy, surgy, scummy, mealy, sparry, 
heathy, rooty, slumbery, bowery, bloomy, boundly, palmy, 
surgy, spermy, ripply, spangly, spherey, orby, oozy, skeyey, 
clayey, and plashy. 114 Adjectives in ing are : cheering, hushing, 
breeding, combing, dumpling, sphering, tenting, toying, baaing, 
far-spooming, peering (hand), searing (hand), shelving, ser- 
penting. Adverbs are : scantly, elegantly, refreshingly, freshen- 
ing (lave), hoveringly, greyly, cooingly, silverly, refresh fully, 
whitely, drowningly, wingedly, sighingly, windingly, bearingly. 

These statements are not very conclusive proof of the 
frequent occurrences of the same words in the poems of the 
two men. They are questionable even in regard to the prin- 
ciples of usage themselves, since poets of the same period or 
young poets may possess the same tendencies. Yet in the 
light of their relations already discussed the similarity of a 
number of principles seems convincing proof that Hunt in- 
fluenced Keats considerably in the principles of diction in his 
first volume and occasionally in the selection of individual 
words; and that Keats never entirely freed himself from some 
of Hunt's peculiarities. Shelley, in writing of Hyperion to 
Mrs. Hunt, spoke of the " bad sort of style which is becoming 
fashionable among those who fancy that they are imitating 

u4 This is used in Hyperion, II, 1. 45. The expression "plashy pools" 
occurs in the Story of Rimini. 



63 

Hunt and Wordsworth." 115 Medwin reported Shelley as say- 
ing " We are certainly indebted to the Lakists for a more 
simple and natural phraseology ; but the school that has sprung 
out of it, have spawned a set of words neither Chaucerian 
nor Spencerian (sic), words such as 'gib,' and 'flush,' 'whif- 
fling,' ' perking up,' ' swirling,' ' lightsome and brightsome ' 
and hundreds of others." 116 

Keats, following the lead of Hunt, used the free heroic 
couplet in several of the 1817 poems with a license even 
greater than Hunt's. In Endymion he indulged in further 
vagaries of rhythm and metre that Hunt never dreamed of and 
in fact greatly disapproved of. Hunt said that "Endymion had 
no versification." 117 In its want of couplet and line units, this 
is not very far from the truth. Writing of it again in 1828, 
he says: "The great fault of Endymion next to its unpruned 
luxuriance, (or before it, rather, for it was not a fault on the 
right side,) was the wilfulness of its rhymes. The author 
had a just contempt for the monotonous termination of every-, 
day couplets ; he broke up his lines in order to distribute, the 
rhyme properly; but going only upon the ground of his con- 
tempt, and not having settled with himself any principles of 
versification, the very exuberance of his ideas led him to 
make use of the first rhymes that offered; so that, by a new 
meeting of effects, the extreme was artificial, and much more 
obtrusive than the one under the old system. Dryden modestly 
thought, that a rhyme had often helped him to a thought. Mr. 
Keats in the tyranny of his wealth, forced his rhymes to help 
him, whether they would or not; and they obeyed him, in the 
most singular manner, with equal promptitude and ungain- 
liness." 118 Endymion has been thought by some critics, to 
have been written under the metrical influence of Chamber- 
layne's Pharronida. In the number of run-on lines and cou- 
plets — a scheme nearer blank verse than the couplet — there is 
certainly a striking correspondence. Mr. Forman thinks that 

115 November n, 1820. 

U6 Life of Percy Bysshe Shelly, II, p. 36. 

117 Imagination and Fancy, p. 231. 

118 Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, pp. 252-3. 



64 

Keats knew the poem. Mr. Colvin and Mr. De Selincourt 
can see no real likeness. There is no proof as yet discovered 
that Keats ever heard of it. 

In Lamia, after the extreme reaction in Endymion, Keats 
approached nearer to the classic form of the couplet used by 
Dryden, but still with greater freedom in structure than ap- 
pears in either Dryden or Hunt. From the evidence of Brown 
it is probable that Keats imitated Dryden directly and not 
through the medium of Hunt's work, but it is very likely that 
Hunt directed him there in the first instance for a model. Mr. 
Palgrave says of the metre of Lamia that Keats "admirably 
found and sustained the balance between a blank verse treat- 
ment of the 'Heroic' and the epigrammatic form carried to 
such perfection by Pope." 119 Leigh Hunt said that " the lines 
seem to take pleasure in the progress of their own beauty like 
sea nymphs luxuriating through the water." 120 

In conclusion, Keats's early and late employment of the 
couplet was marked always by greater freedom in the use of 
run-on couplets and lines, and in the handling of the caesura 
than Dryden's or Hunt's ; he was at first slower than Hunt to 
employ the triplet and the Alexandrine, but he later adopted 
them in a larger measure ; and he introduced the run-on para- 
graph and the hemistich independently of Hunt. 

"• Palgrave, Poetical Works of John Keats, p. 274. 
™ Poetical Works, 1832, p. 36. 



CHAPTER III 

Shelley 

Finnerty Case — Correspondence of Hunt and Shelley — Their Political 
and Religious Sympathy — Hunt's Defense of Shelley — Hunt's Italian 
Journey — Shelley's Death — Hunt's Criticism — Literary Influence — Shelley's 
Estimate of Hunt. 

The friendship of Shelley and Leigh Hunt is the simple story 
of an intimacy founded on a common endowment of indepen- 
dence of thought and of capacity for self-sacrifice. Although 
both were sensitive and shrinking by nature, and preferred to 
dwell in an isolated world of books and dreams, yet for the 
sake of abstract principles and for love of humanity, both 
expended much time and endured much pain in the arena of 
public strife. 

In The Examiners of February 18 and 24, 181 1, appeared 
articles by Hunt on the Finnerty case. Peter Finnerty, Hunt's 
successor as editor of The Statesman, had been prosecuted and 
imprisoned on the charge of libelling Lord Castlereagh. Hunt's 
defense drew Shelley's attention to the case and may have 
inspired him, it has been suggested, to write his Political Essay 
on the Existing State of Things. The proceeds went to Fin- 
nerty. 1 On March 2 Shelley subscribed to the Finnerty fund 
and, on the same day, wrote Hunt, whom he had never met, a 
letter from Oxford, congratulating him on his acquittal from 
a third charge of libel and proposing that an association should 
be formed to establish " rational liberty," to resist the enemies 
of justice, and to protect each other. 2 

1 The poem is reported to have brought £100, more than any poem 
sold during his lifetime. It is now lost. 

2 Mac-Carthay, who has fully treated this incident, thinks that the 
account Hunt gave of the matter many years later is so incoherent as to 
indicate that he did not receive the letter until after he met Shelley, or per- 
haps not at all. He also points out that two passages in the letter to Hunt 
of March 2, 181 1, important in their bearing upon Shelley's political theories 

65 



66 

Shelley's political creed was, in the main, that of William 
Godwin, with an admixture of Holbach, Volney and Rousseau 
at first hand. 3 In English philosophic literature he knew 
Berkeley, Hume, Reid and Locke. His watchword was the 
cry of the French Revolution, liberty, equality and fraternity, 
to be gained, not by violence and bloodshed, but by a steady 
and unyielding resistance of the masses against the corrupt 
institutions of church and state. Like Godwin, he believed 
man capable of his own redemption and, with tradition and 
tyranny overthrown and reason and nature enthroned, he 
hoped for universal justice and ultimate perfectibility of man- 
kind. His poetry and his prose represent a development from 
the impassioned and imaginative enthusiasm of an uncompro- 
mising youth, who would single-handed revolutionize the world 
in the twinkling of an eye, to the saner hope of a man who 
took somewhat into account the necessarily gradual nature of 
ethical evolution. His chief fallacy lay in the failure to recog- 
nize evil as an inherent force in human nature and to acknowl- 
edge sect and state, to which he attributed the origin of all 
error, as inventions of man's ingenuity. Neither did he per- 
ceive the necessity of certain restrictions on the individual for 
the preservation of law and order. He believed in no distinc- 
tions of rank except those based on individual talent and virtue. 
He wrote in 1811 : " I am no aristocrat, nor ' crat' at all, but 
vehemently long for the time when men may dare to live in ac- 
cordance with Nature and Reason — in consequence with Virtue, 
to which I firmly believe that Religion and its establishments, 
Polity and its establishments, are the formidable though de- 
structible barriers." 4 Shelley knew of Leigh Hunt first as a 
political writer of considerable importance. In this respect he 
never ceased to admire him or to be influenced by The Exam- 
iner in the campaign against government corruption. Yet his 
own equipment of mind and training, visionary as his theories 
seem, gave him a power of speculation and grasp of situation 

at this time, are identical with passages in a letter of February 22 of the 
same year, addressed to the editor of The Statesman, presumably Finnerty. 
{Shelley's Early Life, pp. 1-106.) 

3 Hancock, The French Revolution and English Poets, pp. 50-77. 

4 Letter to Miss Hitchener, June 25, 181 1. 



67 

that ignored the limitations of time and space, while Hunt, with 
his narrower view, never got beyond the petty and immediate 
details of one nation or of one age. 

The social improvements which Shelley advocated were 
Catholic Emancipation, brought about later, as has been pointed 
out by Symonds, by the very means which Shelley foresaw and 
prophesied ; reform of parliamentary representation 5 similar to 
that carried into effect in 1832, 1867 and 1882; freedom of the 
press 6 and repeal of the union of Great Britain and Ireland; 
the abolition of capital punishment and of war. 7 During the 
fourteen years of Hunt's editorship, among the reforms for 
which he fought in The Examiner were the first three of these 
measures. He denounced capital punishment and war in the 
same paper and later in his poem Captain Sword and Captain 
Pen. 8 

Shelley's moral code was based on an idealized sense of jus- 
tice, and was a kind of " natural piety." 9 With one marked 
exception, he seems to have been true to the pursuit of it, both 
in his standards of conduct and in his relations with others. 
His life was a model of generosity, purity of thought, and 
unselfish devotion. Hunt reported Shelley as having said : 
" What a divine religion might be found out, if charity were 
really the principle of it, instead of faith." 10 He was atheist 
only in the sense of discarding the dogmas of theology and 
of superstition, and in his spirit of scientific inquiry. He 
did not deny the existence in nature of an all-pervading spirit. 
Hunt thought the popular misconception of Shelley's opinions 
was due to his misapplication of the names of the Deity and to 
his identification of them with vulgar superstitions. Of Shel- 
ley's attitude he wrote : " His want of faith in the letter, and 
his exceeding faith in the spirit of Christianity, formed a com- 
ment, the one on the other, very formidable to those who 

5 G. B. Smith, Shelley, A Critical Biography, p. 88. 
8 See the Letter to Lord Ellenborough. 

7 Smith, Shelley, A Critical Biography, p. no. 

8 For Shelley's opinion on the coincidence of their political views, see 
the last paragraph of the dedication of The Cenci. 

9 Hunt, Autobiography, II, p. 103. 

10 Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, p. 176. 



68 

chose to forget what Scripture itself observes on that point." 11 
Whether or not Shelly believed in immortality is still a vexed 
question and is likely to remain so, since he had not reached 
convictions sufficiently stable to permit a formal statement 
on his part. Many of the passages in Adonais would lead 
one to believe that he did ; certainly he did, like Hunt, cling 
to the idea of the persistence, in some form or other, of 
the good and the beautiful. The close conformity of their 
views is seen in the latter's two sonnets in Foliage 12 addressed 
to Shelley, where the poet condemns the degrading notions so 
prevalent concerning the Deity and celebrates the Spirit of 
Beauty and Goodness in all things. But, in religion as in poli- 
tics, Shelley was bolder and more speculative than Hunt. 

The fine of £1,000 and imprisonment of the Hunt brothers 
in 1813 drew from Shelley a vehement protest. In a letter to 
Hogg 13 he lamented the inadequacy of Lord Brougham's de- 
fense and fairly boiled with indignation at " the horrible injus- 
tice and tyranny of the sentence " and pronounced Hunt " a 
brave, a good, and an enlightened man." He started a sub- 
scription with twenty pounds, and later he must have offered 
to pay the entire fine, for Hunt recorded in his Autobiography 
that Shelley had made him " a princely offer," 14 which he 
declined, as he did not need it. The offer was actuated solely 
by a hatred of oppression, for the two men had little or no 
personal knowledge of each other at the time. 

It is impossible to decide the exact date of their first meet- 
ing. Hunt says that it took place before the indictment for 
libel on the Prince Regent. 15 This evidence would make it fall 
sometime between March, 1812, the date of Shelley's letter 
mentioned above, and February, 1813, the beginning of the 
incarceration. But a letter from Shelley to Hunt dated De- 
cember 7, 181 3, demanding if he had made the statement that 
Milton had died an atheist, from its very formal tone, leads 
one to believe that they had not met up to that time and that 
Hunt, writing from memory many years afterwards, made a 

11 Autobiography, II, p. 36. 

12 Pp. 122, 123. "II, p. 13. 

13 December 27, 1812. 15 Autobiography, II, p. 27. 



69 

mistake. Thornton Hunt gives as the immediate cause of the 
two men coming together, Shelley's application to Mr. Rowland 
Hunter, the publisher and stepfather of Mrs. Hunt, for advice 
regarding the publication of a poem. He referred Shelley to 
Leigh Hunt. The next meeting was in Surrey Street Gaol. 
Thornton Hunt, in a delightful reminiscence of Shelley, 16 says 
that he had no recollection of him among his father's visitors 
in prison, but he remembered perfectly the latter's description 
of his " angelic " appearance, his classic thoughts, and his 
dreams for the emancipation of mankind. The real intimacy 
began after Shelley's return from the continent in 1816 when 
Shelley, in search of a house before he settled at Marlow, was 
the guest of Hunt at Hampstead during a part of December. 17 
A close companionship followed uninterruptedly for two years 
until Shelley went to Italy, and there are recorded in the letters 
and journals of each many pleasant evenings at Hampstead 
and at Marlow, filled with poetry and music, with talks on art 
and trials of wit, with dinners and theater parties. Mary 
Shelley and Mrs. Hunt became as great friends as their 
husbands. 

When Harriet committed suicide and Shelley went up to 
London to institute proceedings for possession of their chil- 
dren, Hunt remained constantly with him and gave him as 
much sympathy and support as it is possible for one fellow- 
being to extend to another whom all the world has deserted. 18 
He attended the Chancery suit and stated Shelley's position in 

18 Atlantic Monthly, February, 1863. 

17 December 8, 1816, Shelley wrote to Hunt: "I have not in all my 
intercourse with mankind experienced sympathy and kindness with which 
I have been so affected, or which my whole being has so sprung forward 
to meet and to return. . . . With you, and perhaps some others (though 
in a less degree, I fear) my gentleness and sincerity find favour, because 
they are themselves gentle and sincere : they believe in self-devotion and 
generosity because they are themselves generous and self-devoted." 
(Nicoll and Wise, Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, p. 328.) 

18 December 15, 1816, Shelley wrote Mary Godwin: Hunt's "delicate 
and tender attentions to me, his kind speeches of you, have sustained me 
against the weight of the horror of this event." (Dowden, Life of Shelley, 
II, p. 68.) 



70 

The Examiner.™ This sympathy and support, given Shelley 
in his hour of greatest need and desolation, have never been 
sufficiently valued in a comparative estimate of the relative 
indebtedness of the two men. If Shelley gave freely of his 
money, Hunt, devoid of wordly goods, gave unstintingly, to the 
detriment of his reputation, of those things which money can- 
not purchase. That he incurred the displeasure of men in 
power, and ran the risk of being misunderstood by the public 
in befriending Shelley, did not deter him for an instant. 

During 1817 Shelley made the acquaintance, through Hunt, 
of the Cockney circle, including Keats, Reynolds, Hazlitt, 
Brougham, Novello and Horace Smith. The last-named be- 
came one of Shelley's most trusted friends. 20 These new 
friends enlarged his list of acquaintances considerably, for up 
to this time he seems to have had no friends except Godwin, 
Hogg and Peacock. 

In the early spring of 18 18, the Shelley s went to Italy, mel- 
ancholy with the thought of separation from the Hunts. 21 
The letters from Shelley to Hunt during the next four years 
form an important part of Shelley's correspondence. 

The part played by Shelley in the invitation extended to 
Hunt to join Lord Byron and himself in Italy and to become 
one of the editors of a periodical will be treated minutely in 
the next chapter. It is sufficient here to say that he was 
actuated by a desire to better Hunt's finances and to enjoy his 
society — a pleasure he had been pining for ever since they had 
been separated, and, in case of a return to England, regarded 
as the one joy " among all the other sources of regret and dis- 
comfort with which England abounds for me. . . . Shaking 
hands with you is worth all the trouble ; the rest is clear loss." 22 

19 (a) The Examiner, January 26, 181 7. (b) Ibid., February 12, 181 7. 
(c) Ibid., August 31, 1817. (d) Hunt, Correspondence, I, p. 114; August 
27, 1817. 

: " Shelley said of Horace Smith : " but is it not odd that the only truly 
generous person I ever knew, who had money to be generous with, should 
be a stockbroker." (Hunt, Autobiography, I, p. 211.) See also Letter to 
Maria Gisborne, 11. 247-253 ; Forman, Works of Shelley, III, p. 225 ff. 

21 Works of Shelley, VIII, p. 3 ; March 22, 1818. 

a Works of Shelley, VIII, p. 141; November 13, 1819. 



71 

Further, he knew that Hunt longed for Italy, and he wished 
to help Byron in the cause of liberalism. To bring both ends 
about, he shouldered a burden that he was ill able to bear. An 
annuity of £200 for the support of his two children, an annuity 
of £100 to Peacock, perpetual demand for large sums from 
Godwin, occasional assistance rendered the Gisbornes, partial 
support of Jane Claremont, loans to Byron, and the support of 
his family, were the drains already upon him — met, in the 
main by money raised on post obits at half value. 

The amount of Hunt's indebtedness to Shelley can be esti- 
mated only approximately. The first reference to a financial 
transaction between them after the " princely offer " 23 is to be 
found in Mary Shelley's letter of December 6, 1816, in which 
she wondered that Hunt had not acknowledged the " receipt of 
so large a sum." Professor Dowden thinks this may be an 
allusion to Shelley's response to an appeal for the poor of 
Spitalfields which had appeared in The Examiner five days 
previously. 24 Shelley's offers to Hunt to borrow £100 from 
Byron 25 and to stand security for a loan from Charles Cowden 
Clarke, 26 and an attempt to borrow from Samuel Rogers 27 are 
not developed by any further facts, but it is necessary to take 
note of them in a general estimate. Before leaving England, 
Shelley arranged with Oilier for a loan of £100 for Hunt, a 
debt which was later liquidated by the sale of the Literary 
Pocket Book. 28 At some time before leaving England, Shelley 
also gave Hunt in one year £i,400 29 for the liquidation of his 
debts, which money was, Medwin says, borrowed from Horace 
Smith. 30 Unfortunately for Shelley, the sum was insufficient 

23 Professor Masson says that one of Shelley's first acts was to offer 
Hunt £100. It is probable he refers to the occasion already discussed. 
{Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats and Other Essays, p. 112.) 

24 Dowden, Life of Shelley, II, p. 61. 

25 Nicoll and Wise, Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, p. 
331 ; December 8, 1816. 

26 Ibid., p. 336; August 16, 1817. 

27 Rogers, Table Talk, p. 236. 

28 Hunt, Correspondence, I, p. 146; September 12, 1819. 

29 Hunt, Autobiography, II, p. 36; Correspondence, I, p. 126. 

30 Medwin, Life of Shelley, II, p. 137. 



72 

to extricate Hunt from his difficulties. Miss Mitford gives 
the amount as £1,500, instead of £1,400, and adds that Shel- 
ley's furniture and bedding were swept off to pay Hunt's cred- 
itors; 31 the inaccuracy of the first statement and the lack of 
any evidence to support the second, lead one to doubt the story. 
But it is true that Shelley's income at the time was only £1,000. 
Even when so far away as Italy, Hunt's money troubles 
weighed heavily upon Shelley in a continual regret that he 
could not set him entirely free from his creditors ; 32 he feared 
that the incredible exertions Hunt was making on The Indi- 
cator and on The Examiner, and the privations that he en- 
dured, would undermine his health. 33 When Hunt finally 
decided to go to Italy, Shelley assumed, as a matter of course, 
the chief responsibility of providing the means. 

As early as 1818, when Shelley and Byron met in Venice, the 
matter of the journal was discussed between them and broached 
to Hunt. December 22, 1818, Shelley wrote him that Byron 
wished him to come to Italy and that, if money considerations 
prevented, Byron would lend him £400 or £500. He added 
that Hunt should not feel uncomfortable in accepting the offer, 
as it was frankly made, and that his society would give Byron 
pleasure and service. 34 Hunt does not seem to have seriously 
considered the proposition, for there are few references to it 
in his correspondence of this year. On the renewal of the plan 
in 1 82 1, Shelley would never have called on Byron for assist- 
ance for Hunt if he himself could have provided otherwise, for 
his opinion of Byron had changed in the meantime. 35 January 
25, 1822, Shelley sent £150 for the expenses of the voyage, 
" within 30 or 40 pounds of what I have contrived to scrape 

31 Mitford, Life, I, p. 280. Jeaffreson, The Real Shelley, II, p. 357. 

32 Nicoll and Wise, Literary Anecdotes, p. 348; April 5, 1820. He 
assumed the debt for Hunt's piano as naturally as he did for his own. 
Prof. Dowden says that John Hunt expected Shelley to become responsible 
for all of his brother's debts. {Life of Shelley, II, p. 458.) 

33 Hunt, Correspondence, I, p. 158; November 11, 1820. 

34 Nicoll and Wise, Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, p. 342. 

35 See Chapter IV, p. 89. 



73 

together" ; 36 and again on February 23, £250," borrowed with 
security from Byron. Yet Shelley's own exchequer at the time 
was so low that Mary Shelley wrote in the spring: "We are 
drearily behindhand with money at present. Hunt and our 
furniture has swallowed up more than our savings.'' 38 On 
April 10 Shelley stated that he was trying to finish Charles the 
First in order that he might earn £100 for Hunt. 

In round numbers it may be calculated that the sum total of 
Hunt's indebtedness, exclusive of the yearly bequest of £120 
paid by Shelley's son, was about £2,500, a very large sum in 
the light of Shelley's limited resources and other obligations. 
But it was as ungrudgingly given as it was graciously received. 
Between the two men there was no distinction of meum and 
tuum. More remarkable still, Mary Shelley gave as willingly 
as her husband. If one is inclined to marvel at such an un- 
usual state of affairs, it must be recalled that both men were 
under the spell of William Godwin's theories of community of 
property. Shelley gave as his duty and Hunt received as his 
due. That the effort involved much deprivation and distress 
of mind on the part of the giver mars the justice of acceptance 
by the recipient, retrieved only in part by the belief that Hunt 
probably did not know the full extent of Shelley's sacrifice, 
and the knowledge that the former would gladly have endured 
as much if the conditions had been reversed. The element of 
self-sacrifice and delicacy on the part of Shelley in concealing 
it, in after years only added to the beauty of the gift in Hunt's 
eyes, and even at the time he cannot be accused of indiffer- 
ence. 39 Jeaffreson makes the absurd suggestion that Shelley 

38 Dowden, Life of Shelley, II, p. 456 ; also Works of Shelley, VIII, p. 
252. 

37 (a) Nicoll and Wise, Literary Anecdotes, pp. 352, 356. (b) Byron, 
Letters and Journals, VI, p. 11. 

38 Dowden, Life of Shelley, II, p. 489. 

39 Hunt, Autobiography, II, pp. 36-37. In August, 1819, Hunt importunes 
Shelley to give no thought to his affairs {Correspondence, I, p. 136). Hunt 
wrote Mary Shelley on September 7, 1821 : "Pray thank Shelley or rather 
do not, for that kind part of his offer relating to the expenses. I find I 
have omitted it; but the instinct that led me to do so is more honorable 
to him than thanks." {Correspondence, I, p. 171.) 



74 

gave the money as a bribe to the editor of a powerful and flour- 
ishing literary journal. 40 He thinks dodging creditors was a 
strong bond of mutual interest between the two men. There 
is evidence that Hunt was in difficulty at the time and that 
Shelley left a surgeon's bill unpaid, 41 but there is no proof 
extant of deliberate mutual protection. On the contrary, it is 
most unlikely. 

The Hunts sailed from England in November, 1821, and 
reached Leghorn nearly nine months after first setting out on 
a voyage which, in its delays and dangers, Byron compared 
to the " periplus of Hanno the Carthaginian, and with much 
the same speed " ; 42 Peacock to that of Ulysses. 43 Of Shelley's 
suggestion to make the trip by sea, Hunt wrote: "if he had 
recommended a balloon, I should have been inclined to try 
it." 44 Hogg, with his characteristic humour, remarked that a 
journey by land would have taken equally long, since Hunt 
would have stopped to gather all the daisies by the wayside 
from Paris to Pisa. Both men looked forward to many years 
together 45 and Shelley, in his letter of welcome, wrote that 
wind and waves parted them no more, 46 an assertion which 
now sounds like a knell of doom. From Leghorn Shelley con- 
veyed the party to Pisa and installed them in the lower floor 
of Byron's dwelling, the Lanfranchi Palace. 47 To Shelley fell 
the difficult task of keeping Lord Byron in heart for the new 
undertaking and of reviving Hunt's drooping spirits. Hunt's 
funds were all gone and in their place was a debt of sixty 
crowns. The next few days were full of grave anxiety and 
foreboding for the future, broken only by a delightful Sunday 
spent in seeing the Cathedral and the Tower. Of this day 
Hunt wrote : " Good God ! what a day was that, compared with 

40 Jeaffreson, The Real Shelley, II, p. 355. 

41 W. M. Rossetti, Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, I, 
p. 75. 

43 Letters and Journals, VI, p. 96. 

43 Kent, Leigh Hunt as Poet and Essayist, p. 28. 

44 Autobiography, II, p. 60. 

45 Atlantic Monthly, February, 1863. 

46 Works of Shelley, VIII, p. 283. June 19, 1822. 

47 Built by Michaelangelo and situated on the Arno. 



75 

all that have followed it! I had my friend with me, arm-in- 
arm, after a separation of years : he was looking better than I 
had ever seen him — we talked of a thousand things — we antici- 
pated a thousand pleasures." 48 Then came the fatal Monday 
with its shipwreck of many hopes — in its tragic sequel too well 
known to need repetition here. Hunt's last services to his 
friend were his assistance rendered at the cremation and his 
contribution of the now famous Latin epitaph " cor cordium."* 9 
With Shelley perished Hunt's chief hope in life; in the opin- 
ion of his son, he was never the same man again. In 1832, at 
his period of darkest depression, he wrote : " If you ask me 
how it is that I bear all this, I answer, that I love nature and 
books, and think well of the capabilities of human kind. I 
have known Shelley, I have known my mother." 50 In 1844 
he claimed as his proudest title, the " Friend of Shelley." 51 

43 The Liberal, I, p. 103. 

49 Brandes attributes the inscription to Mary Shelley. (Main Currents in 
Nineteen Century Literature, IV, p. 208.) 

60 Correspondence, I, p. 269. 

51 After Shelley's death, Mary Shelley decided to remain in Italy in 
order to assist with The Liberal. She considered Hunt " expatriated at 
the request and desire of others," and, in helping him, she thought to 
fulfil any obligation that Shelley might have assumed in the scheme. For 
her services she received thirty-three pounds. She lived for some time 
in the same house with the Hunts after they separated from Lord Byron, 
but the arrangement was an unhappy one. Disagreements, beginning with 
a misunderstanding concerning the possession of Shelley's heart, dragged 
through the winter. Fortunately everything was adjusted before they 
separated. July, 1823, she wrote of Hunt: "he is all kindness, considera- 
tion and friendship — all feeling of alienation towards me has disappeared 
to its last dregs." (Marshall, The Life and Letters of Mary Wollstone- 
craft Godwin, London, 1889, II, p. 81.) And again: "But thank heaven 
we are now the best friends in the world. ... It is a delightful thing, 
my dear Jane, to be able to express one's affection upon an old and tried 
friend like Hunt, and one so passionately attached to my Shelley as he 
was, and is. . . . He was displeased with me for many just reasons, but 
he found me willing to expiate, as far as I could, the evil I had done; 
his heart again warmed, and if when I return you find me more amiable, 
and more willing to suffer with patience than I was, it is to him that 
I owe this benefit." (Ibid., II, p. 85.) 



76 

The first printed notice of Shelley was in The Examiner of 
December i, 1816. Therefore to Hunt belongs in this case, as 
in that of Keats, the credit of discovery. It is difficult to 
account for Hunt's tardiness of recognition, 52 coming as it did 
six years after Shelley first wrote him, five years after the 
Finnerty poem, three years after Queen Mab, and two years 
after the visit in prison. 53 Also Shelley had sent contribu- 
tions to The Examiner, which Hunt had not accepted, but 
which he vaguely recalled at the time of writing his first review 
on Shelley. It was inspired by the announcement of Alastor, 
and consisted of about ten lines, embodied in the article on 
Keats and Reynolds already referred to. Hunt pronounced 
Shelley " a very striking and original thinker." Shelley's reply 
to a letter from Hunt, telling him of the notice, pictures him 
anxiously scouring the countryside about Bath for the sight of 
a copy and buoyed up at last by the news of one five miles 
distant. 

This notice was followed by the publication of the Hymn to 
Intellectual Beauty in The Examiner of January 19, 1817; a 
notice of the Chancery suit, January 26 and February 2; and 
an extract from Laon and Cythna, November 30. A review 
of the Revolt of Islam ran through three numbers, January 25, 
February 8 and 22, 1818. Shelley's system of charity and his 
crusade against tyranny, as set forth in the preface, Hunt 
loudly applauded. Many extracts were italicized for the guid- 
ance of the public. The beauties of the poem were pronounced 
to be its mysticism, its wildness, its depth of sentiment, its 
grandeur of imagery, and its varied and sweet versification. 
In the boldness of speculation and in the love of virtue Hunt 
saw a resemblance to Lucretius, while in the gloom and imagi- 
nation of certain passages, particularly in the grandeur of the 
supernatural architecture, he was reminded of Dante. The 
defects were pronounced to be obscurity of narrative and same- 
ness of image and metaphor. The review closed with the 
prophecy " we have no doubt he is destined to be one of the 
leading spirits of the age." ' 

62 Jeaffreson assigns the cause of Hunt's neglect to his ignorance of the 

fact that he could suck money out of Shelley. The Real Shelley, II, p. 352. 

83 Mac-Carthay in Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, p. 302. 



77 

The Quarterly Review of May, 1818, accused Shelley 04 of 
atheism and of dissolute conduct in private life; the same jour- 
nal of April, 1819, reviewing the Revolt of Islam on the basis 
of the suppressed version of Laon and Cythna, though it did 
not fail to appreciate the genius and beauty of the poem, 
charged Shelley with a predilection for incest and with a frantic 
dislike for Christianity. It called the support of The Exam- 
iner " the sweet undersong of the weekly journal." 55 The two 
attacks were met by a strong protest from -Hunt, 56 particularly 
in regard to the part dealing with Shelley's life. He denied 
the propriety of such discussion in public criticism and de- 
clared that he had never known Shelley to " deviate, notwith- 
standing his theories, even into a single action which those who 
differ with him might think blameable." His life at Marlow 
was described as spent in " beautiful charity and generosity " 
and was likened to that of Plato. In 1821 an attack on Shel- 
ley by Hazlitt was met by an angry warning from Hunt and 
a threat to become his public enemy, if the offense were re- 
peated. 57 Hunt's reason for taking this defensive attitude was 
that he knew that Shelley suffered greatly from such malig- 
nant exploitations and that he would not defend himself ; there- 
fore he made his friend's cause his own and wrote: " I reckon 
upon your leaving your personal battles to me," 58 much in the 
same manner as Shelley had assumed his money troubles. 

Following the review of the Revolt of Islam, a notice of 

54 Shelley was deeply wounded by the attack. He wrote Hunt : " As 
to what relates to yourself and me, it makes me melancholy to consider 
the dreadful wickedness of the heart which would have prompted such 
expressions as those with which the anonymous writer gloats over my 
domestic calamities and the perversion of understanding with which he 
paints your character." (Nicoll and Wise, Literary Anecdotes, p. 340 ; 
December 22, 1818.) 

55 Shelley at first attributed the article in the Quarterly to Southey on 
the grounds of his enmity to The Examiner which, Shelley declared, had 
been the " crown of thorns worn by this unredeemed Redeemer for many 
years. Southey denied the authorship. (Nicoll and Wise, Literary Anec- 
dotes, p. 341 ; December 22, 18 18.) 

50 The Examiner, September 26, October 3 and 10, 1819. See also Corre- 
spondence, I, pp. 125-126. 

51 Correspondence, I, p. 169. K Ibid., I, p. 166. 



78 

Rosalind and Helen and of Lines Written among the Euganean 
Hills™ appeared in The Examiner of May 9, 1819. Attention 
was called to the poet's optimism and to his great love of na- 
ture : " the beauty of the external world has an answering 
heart, and the very whispers of the wind a meaning." The 
Cenci, published in 1820, contained in its dedication a glowing 
tribute to Hunt, an honour in Shelley's opinion only in a small 
degree worthy of his friend. 60 Hunt was intoxicated with the 
honour and wrote: " I feel as if you had bound, not only my 
head, but my very soul and body with laurels." 61 On the 
subject of the tragedy he was equally enthusiastic: "What a 
noble book, Shelley, have you given us ! What a true, stately, 
and yet affectionate mixture of poetry, philosophy, and human 
nature, horror, and all redeeming sweetness of intention, for 
there is an undersong of suggestion through it all, that sings, 
as it were, after the storm is over, like a brook in April." 62 In 
a public expression of his opinion in The Examiner of March 
19, 1820, Hunt pronounced The Cenci the greatest dramatic 
production of the day. Writing of the drama again in the 
same journal of July 19 and 26, 1820, he called Shelley "a 
framer of mighty lines" and continued: "Majesty and Love 
do sit on one throne in the lofty buildings of his poetry; and 
they will be found there, at a late and we trust a happier day, 
on a seat immortal as themselves." 

One of Hunt's most perfect poems, Jaffdr, is inscribed to the 
memory of Shelley. The praise of Jaffdr and his friend's 
undying loyalty immediately suggest to the reader that Hunt 

69 See Hunt, Correspondence, I, p. 130. 

60 For Shelley's desire for Hunt's good opinion, see Works of Shelley, 
VIII, p. 167. Hunt's collection of poems, published during 1818, under 
the title of Foliage was dedicated to Shelley : " Had I known a person more 
highly endowed than yourself with all the qualities that it becomes a man 
to possess, I had selected for this work the ornament of his name. One 
more gentle, honorable, innocent and brave ; one of more exalted tolera- 
tion of all who do and think evil ; one who knows better how to receive, 
and how to confer a benefit though he must ever confer far more than 
he can receive ; one of simpler, and in the highest sense of the word, of 
purer life and manners I never knew : and I had already been fortunate in 
friendships when your name was added to the list." 

61 Correspondence, I, p. 153. 62 Ibid., I, p. 154. 



79 

may have been celebrating his own and Shelley's friendship. 
The last review to appear during Shelley's lifetime by Hunt 
was that of Prometheus Unbound in three numbers of The 
Examiner of 1822. A projected review of Adonais alluded to 
in a letter of Hunt's does not seem to have seen the light of 
publication, but a reference in a letter at the time is worth 
noting : " It is the most Delphic poety I have seen in a long 
while : full of those embodyings of the most subtle and airy 
imaginations, — those arrestings and explanations of the most 
shadowy yearnings of our being." 63 The well-known account 
of Shelley's rescue of a woman on Hampstead Heath was told 
in The Literary Examiner of August 23, 1823. 64 The same 
magazine of September 20 of the same year 65 contained the 
following Sonnet to Percy Shelley, given here because of its 
general inaccessibility : 

" Hast thou from earth, then, really passed away, 
And mingled with the shadowy mass of things 
Which were, but are not? Will thy harp's dear strings 
No more yield music to the rapid play 
Of thy swift thoughts, now turned thou art to clay ? 
Hark! Is that rushing of thy spirit's wings, 
When (like the skylark, who in mounting sings) 
Soaring through high imagination's way, 
Thou pour'dst thy melody upon the earth, 
Silent for ever? Yes, wild ocean's wave 
Hath o'er thee rolled. But whilst within the grave 
Thou sleepst, let me in the love of thy pure worth 
One thing foretell, — that thy great fame shall be 
Progressive as Time's flood, eternal as the sea ! " 

In Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries appeared 
the first biographical memoir of Shelley, a sketch of some sev- 
enty pages. 66 It shows great appreciation of the fine and 

63 Ibid., I, p. 179; March 26, 1822. 

64 In an article on the Suburbs of Genoa and the Country about London, 
pp. 118-119. 65 Dated August 4, 1823. 

66 The second part of the sketch was in answer to the Quarterly Review's 
attack on the Posthumous Poems, which Mrs. Shelley, aided by Hunt, had 
published in 1824. This account was reworked in 1850 for the Auto- 
biography and was taken in part for the preface to an edition of Shelley's 
works in 1871. Hunt wrote another biographical sketch of Shelley for 
S. C. Hall's Book of Gems (p. 40). He gave a fine description of his 
physical appearance not often quoted. 



80 

gentle qualities of his rare genius and defends some of the 
weak points of his career. The description of his personal 
appearance, of the life at Marlowe, and the few anecdotes are 
often quoted. But on the whole, it lacks the bold strokes of 
vivid portraiture and it is very disappointing. 67 There was 
probably no one, with the exception of his wife, who knew 
Shelley so well as Hunt and who was, therefore, in a position 
to give as complete and intimate an idea of him. It was Mrs. 
Shelley's wish that Hunt should be her husband's biographer, 
for she thought that he, "perhaps above all others, understood 
his nature and his genius." 08 Hunt, in The Spectator of Au- 
gust 13, 1859, gave as his reason for not writing Shelley's life 
that he " could not survive enough persons." But it is to be 
questioned if he were fitted for the task. His son did not think 
that he was because of his attention to details and his irresist- 
ible tendency to analysis : " a mind, in short, like that of 
Hamlet, cultivated rather than corrected by the trials of life, 
was scarcely suited to comprehend the strong instincts, indomi- 
table will, and complete unity of idea which distinguished 
Shelley." 69 

In the Tatler of August 1, 1831, Hunt wrote that "Mr. 
Shelley was a platonic philosopher, of the acutest and loftiest 
kind," and that he belonged to the school of Plato and ^schylus, 
as Keats belonged to that of Spenser and Milton. Following 
The Tatler was the preface to The Mask of Anarchy,' 10 pub- 
lished in 1832, originally designed for The Examiner in 1819, 
but laid aside by the editor because he thought the public not 
discerning enough " to do justice to the sincerity and kind- 
heartedness of the spirit that walked in this flaming robe of 
verse." The preface eulogizes the poet's spiritual nature and 
his " seraphic purpose of good." In The Seer, 1841, Shelley's 
qualities of heart were pronounced more enduring than his 
genius. 71 

67 It was considered by the Alhaneum to be the best part of the book, 
and to be the " powerful portrait of a benevolent man." (VI, p. 70.) 

68 Letter to Oilier, February, 1858. 

69 Atlantic Monthly, February, 1863. 

70 Forman, Shelley Library, p. 113, says that the motto from Laon and 
Cynthia was added by Hunt. 71 Pt. 2, p. 37. 



81 

Imagination and Fancy contained an essay and selections 
from his poems. Here Hunt makes the curious statement that 
little in the poems is purely poetical, but rather moral, political, 
and speculative. It is noteworthy that he predicts, probably 
for the first time, that, had Shelley lived, he would have been 
the greatest dramatic writer since the days of Elizabeth, if 
not, indeed, actually so, through what he did accomplish; a 
statement often repeated. He says: "If Coleridge is the 
sweetest of our poets, Shelley is at once the most ethereal and 
gorgeous, the one who has clothed his thought in draperies of 
the most evanescent and most magnificent words and imagery. 
. . . Shelley . . . might well call himself Ariel." 72 In con- 
nection with Shelley's ethereal qualities, Mrs. James T. Fields 
quotes Hunt as having said on another occasion that Shelley 
always seemed to him as if he were "just alit from the planet 
Mercury, bearing a winged wand tipped with flame." 73 In 
Imagination and Fancy, Hunt continues : " Not Milton himself 
is more learned in Grecisms, or nicer in entomological pro- 
priety; and nobody, throughout, has a style so Orphic and 
primeval." 

It is a touching circumstance that Hunt's last letter bore 
reference to Shelley, and that his last effort as a public writer, 
made only a few days before his death, was in vindication of 
Shelley's character. 74 The publication of the Shelley Memo- 
rials, 1859, i n which Hunt had a part, provoked an unfavorable 
review in The Spectator. Hunt replied in the next number 75 
of the same paper. In particular he asserted Shelley's truth- 
fulness, which had been assailed in respect to his story of the 
attempted assassination in Wales. He held that Shelley was not 
a man to be judged by ordinary rules, but that he was 
the highest possible exponent of humanity — an approach to 
divinity. 

Hunt's literary relation with Shelley falls into two divisions ; 
publications written for Hunt's periodicals, and received by Hunt 

"p. 217. 13 A Shelf of Old Books, p. 291. 

74 Hunt's Book of the Sonnet, which appeared posthumously, contained 
a criticism of Shelley's sonnet on Ozymandyas (I, p. 87). 
"August 13 and 20, 1859. 



82 

in order to give Shelley an outlet of expression denied him in 
the more conservative papers; and second, positive literary 
imitation. Besides the poems quoted in Hunt's criticisms of 
Shelley, the first includes a review of Godwin's Mandeville™ 
a letter of protest regarding the second edition of Queen 
Mab, 77 Marianne's Dream, 78 Song on a Faded Violet 79 The 
Sunset, 80 The Question, 81 Good Night, 82 Sonnet, Ye Hasten to 

the Grave, 83 To (Lines to a Reviewer), 84 November, 

1815, 85 Love's Philosophy, 86 and the contributions designed by 
Shelley for The Liberal and published after his death. 87 Pro- 
ductions which were written for Hunt's papers, but were not 
accepted, were Peter Bell the Third, The Mask of Anarchy, 
Julian and Maddalo, a letter on the persecution of Richard 
Carlile, 88 letters on Italy, and a review of Peacock's Rhodo- 
daphne. Hunt's failure to accept what was sent him greatly 
discouraged Shelley at times : " Mine is a life of failures ; Pea- 
cock says my poetry is composed of day dreams and night- 
mares, and Leigh Hunt does not think it good enough for The 
Examiner." 

On a Fete at Carlton House, an attack on the Prince Regent, 
though perhaps directly inspired by the account in the dailies 
of the ball at Carlton House on June 20, 181 1, was doubtless 
influenced by the continued attacks of The Examiner. As 
there are extant only two or three lines of the poem, 80 it is im- 

78 The Examiner, December 28, 1817. 
"Ibid., July 15, 1821. 

78 Literary Pocket Book, London, 1819. Shelley's signature was A and 2. 
See Hunt, Correspondence, I, 125. 
79 Literary Pocket Book, 1821. (Works of Shelley, III, p. 150.) 
80 Literary Pocket Book, 1821. (Works of Shelley, III, p. 380.) 
81 Literary Pocket Book, 1822. (Works of Shelley, IV, p. 32.) 
62 Ibid., 1822. (Works of Shelley, IV, p. 49.) 
83 Ibid., 1823. (Works of Shelley, IV, p. 63.) 
"Ibid., 1823. (Works of Shelley, IV, p. 41.) 

85 Ibid., 1823. Mr. Forman thinks that the poem refers to Harriet 
Shelley's death and that the date is a disguise. (Works of Shelley, III, 
p. 146.) 

86 The Indicator, December 22, 1819. 

87 Chapter IV. 

88 Works of Shelley, VIII, p. 291 ; November 3, 1819. 

89 Works of Shelley, IV, p. 359. 



83 

possible to judge of the extent of the influence, but in Shelley's 
letters to Hogg and to Edward Graham describing the poem, 
there is resemblance in tone and epithet to The Examiner. A 
letter from Shelley to Lord Ellenborough on the occasion of 
Eaton's sentence for publishing the third part of Paine's Age 
of Reason followed a long series of articles by Hunt on the 
prerogative of liberty of speech. 90 

A meeting of Reformers at Manchester on the sixteenth of 
August, 1 819, for the purpose of discussing quietly the annual 
meeting of Parliament, universal suffrage, and voting by ballot, 
was dispersed by military force. Articles setting forth the 
long sufferings of the Reformers, charging the authorities with 
wanton bloodshed, and ridiculing the absurd trial of the offend- 
ers, appeared in The Examiner of August 22, 29, September 5, 
19 and 26. The Mask of Anarchy, written on the occasion of 
the massacre at Manchester, was sent to Leigh Hunt for publi- 
cation sometime before the first of November, 1819. The sen- 
timent of both men is the same regarding the affair. 

Accounts of the death of the Princess Charlotte and of the 
executions for high treason at Derby of Brandreth, Ludlam 
and Turner, after a horrible imprisonment, two articles in The 
Examiner of November 9, 1819, inspired Shelley's Address to 
the People on the Death of the Princess Charlotte, sometimes 
known as We Pity the Plumage, but Forget the Dying Bird, 
dated November 12 of the same year. Hunt followed with a 
second article, Death of the Princess Charlotte and Indecent 
Advantage Taken of It, November 16, 1819. Both writers 
called attention to the disposition of the public to forget the 
sufferings of the poor, while it mourned hysterically with roy- 
alty; they declared that the administration of justice and the 
events leading to such crimes were of much greater importance. 
Three articles in The Examiner of October 17, 24 and 31, 
1819, on the trial of Richard Carlile for libel, were followed 
by an open letter on the same case from Shelley to Hunt dated 
November 3, 1819. By scattered references it can be seen that 
Shelley fully agreed with Hunt in his opinion of the Prince 

90 Six months later, December 6, 1812, Hunt addressed a letter to Lord 
Ellenborough on the same subject in regard to his own sentence. 



84 

Regent and of the Ministers, in his attitude toward the cor- 
ruption of the court and of the army; and in his proposed 
regulation of taxes and of the public debt. 

(Edipus Tyr annus or Swellfoot the Tyrant, begun August, 
1820, succeeded a series of articles, beginning in The Examiner 
of June 11, 1820, and continuing throughout nineteen num- 
bers, 91 on the subject of George IV's attempt to divorce his 
wife. 92 Abhorrence of the king's perfidy and of his ministers' 
support, sympathy for Queen Caroline, and minor details par- 
allel closely Hunt's version in The Examiner. This passage 
occurs in the article of June 9 : " An animal sets himself down, 
month after month, at Milan, to watch at her doors and win- 
dows, to intercept discarded servants and others who know 
what a deposition might be worth, and thus to gather poison 
for one of those venomous Green Bags, which have so long 
infected and nauseated the people, and are now to infect the 
Queen." This seems to be the germ of the passage in Shelley's 
poem beginning : 

"Behold this bag! it is 
The poison Bag of that Green Spider huge, 
On which our spies sulked in ovation through 
The streets of Thebes, when they were paved with dead." 

Then follows the plot to throw the contents upon the Queen. 
The handling of the heroic couplet, employed in the Letter 
to Maria Gisborne and in Epipsychidon, as well as in Julian and 
Maddalo, 93 has been already discussed in its relationship to 
Hunt's use of the same. Shelley, in a letter to Hunt, explains 
his position in regard to the language of Julian and Maddalo: 

" You will find the little piece, I think, in some degree consistent with 
your own ideas of the manner in which poetry ought to be written. I have 
employed a certain familiar style of language to express the actual way in 

91 June 11, 18, 25, July 2, 9, August 27, September 3, 10, October 1, 8, 
15, 22, December 3, 10, 17; in 1821, February 4, August 12, 19, and 
September 9. The last three articles were written after the Queen's 
death. 

92 Keats's The Cap and Bells deals with the same. 

93 Shelley gave directions that the poem should be printed like Hunt's 
Hero and Leander. Works of Shelley, III, p. 101. 



85 

which people talk to each other, whom education and a certain refinement 
of sentiment have placed above the use of vulgar idioms. I use the word 
vulgar in its most extensive sense. The vulgarity of rank and fashion is 
as gross, in its way, as that of poverty, and its cant terms equally ex- 
pressive of base conceptions, and therefore, equally unfit for poetry. Not 
that the familiar style is to be admitted in the treatment of a subject 
wholly ideal, or in that part of any subject which relates to common life, 
where the passion, exceeding a certain limit, touches the boundary of that 
which is ideal. Strong passion expresses itself in metaphor, borrowed 
alike from subjects remote or near, and casts over all the shadow of its 
own greatness." 94 

Rosalind and Helen, the Letter to Maria Gisborne, Swellfoot 
the Tyrant, and Peter Bell the Third 35 show a similar influence. 
The Letter to Maria Gisborne bears a resemblance to Hunt's 
epistolary style, and was written, Mr. Forman thinks, for cir- 
culation in the Hunt circle only. 00 It was through Hunt, so 
Shelley states in the dedication, that he knew the Peter Bells 
of Wordsworth and of John Hamilton Reynolds. Shelley's 
qualified adoption in these poems of Hunt's theory of poetic 
language is seen in the choice of a vocabulary in dialogue 
nearer everyday usage than the more remote one of his other 
poems. Yet the result does not bear any great resemblance to 
Hunt. Shelley's unvarying refinement and sensibility kept him 
from committing the same errors of taste, but his work suf- 
fered rather than gained by an innovation which was probably 
a concession to his friendship for Hunt and not a strong con- 
viction. With the exception of the descriptive passages, the 
keynote of these poems is on a lower poetic pitch. 

On subjects of Italian art and literature the friends held 
much the same opinion. At times Shelley seems to have been 
led by Hunt's judgment, as in his conclusions regarding Raphael 

94 Works of Shelley, VIII, p. 116; August 15, 1819. The letter instructs 
Hunt to throw the poem into the fire or not as he sees fit and requests him, 
in preference to Peacock, to correct the proofs. " Can you take it as a 
compliment that I prefer to trouble you ? " 

95 Forman wrongly attributes the review of Reynolds' Peter Bell in The 
Examiner of April 25, 1819, to Hunt and says that this "flippant notice" 
by Hunt inspired Shelley's poem. Ibid., II, p. 288. Reynolds asked Keats 
to request Hunt to review his poem. Keats did it himself. (Keats, Works, 
III, pp. 246-249.) 

96 Works of Shelley, III, p. 235. 



86 

and Michaelangelo. 97 One passage on the Italian poets indi- 
cates a possible borrowing of thought and figure on Shelley's 
part when he wrote of Boccaccio that he was superior to 
Ariosto and to Tasso, " the children of a later and colder day. 
. . . How much do I admire Boccaccio ! What descriptions of. 
nature are those in his little introduction to every new day! 
It is the morning of life stripped of that mist of familiarity 
which makes it obscure to us." 98 Hunt wrote : " Petrarch, 
Boccaccio and Dante are the morning, noon and night of the 
great Italian day." 99 

Poems which refer directly to Hunt are the fourteen lines in 
the Letter to Maria Gisborne; 100 possibly the fragment, begin- 
ning, " For me, my friend, if not that tears did tremble." 101 
A cancelled passage of the Adonais describes Hunt thus: 

And then came one of sweet and carnal looks, 
Those soft smiles to his dark and night-like eyes 
Were as the clear and ever-living brooks 
Are to the obscure fountains whence they rise, 

91 Hunt, Correspondence, I, p. 116, 141; April 24, 1818, and September 
6, 1819. Cf. with Works of Shelley, VIII, p. 121 ; September 3, 1819. 
(Editor says dated wrongly.) 

98 Works of Shelley, VIII, p. 127; September 27, 1819. 

M Correspondence, I, p. 123; August 4, 1818. 

100 « you will see Hunt — one of those happy souls 

Which are the salt of the earth, and without whom 
This world would smell like what it is — a tomb ; 
Who is what others seem ; his room no doubt 
Is still adorned by many a cast from Shout, 
With graceful flowers tastefully placed about, 
And coronals of bay from ribbons hung, 
And brighter wreaths in neat disorder flung, — 
The gifts of the most learned among some dozens 
Of female friends, sisters-in-law and cousins. 
And there he is with his eternal puns, 
Which beat the dullest brain for smiles, like duns 
Thundering for money at a poet's door ; 
Alas ! it is no use to say ' I'm poor ! ' " 

101 Mr. Forman thinks that it may be part of the original draft of 
Rosalind and Helen; if so, it is still a very close approximation of Shelley's 
opinion of Hunt {Works of Shelley, III, p. 403). William Rossetti and 
Felix Rabbe think that it was addressed to Hunt. 



87 

Showing how pure they are ; a Paradise 

Of happy truth upon his forehead low 

Lay, making wisdom lovely, in the guise 

Of earth-awakening morn upon the brow 

Of star-deserted heaven, while ocean gleams below, 

His song, though very sweet, was low and faint, 
A single strain — 102 

The thirty-fifth strophe of the present version refers to Hunt. 
Shelley's last letter had reference to Hunt. 103 His last lit- 
erary effort was a poem comparing Hunt to a firefly and wel- 
coming him to Italy, just as Hunt's last letter and last public 
utterance bore reference to Shelley — strange coincidence, but 
striking testimony to their mutual devotion. An instance of 
Shelley's overestimation of Hunt's ability is seen in a passage 
where he says that Hunt excels in tragedy in the power of 
delineating passion and, what is more necessary, of connecting 
and developing it, " the last an incredible effort for himself 
but easy for Hunt." 104 He greatly valued and trusted Hunt's 
affection, at times calling him his best 105 and his only friend. 106 
If the tender solicitude and veneration of a beautiful spirit for 
a man of vastly inferior abilities seems strange, it is but a 
witness to the humility of true genius. 

102 Wise's edition of Adonais, p. 2. London, 1887. 

183 To his wife. Work of Shelley, VIII, p. 288; July 4, 1822. 

1M Nicoll and Wise, Literary Anecdotes, p. 350; April 5, 1820. 

105 Hunt, Correspondence, I, p. 136. Professor George Edward Wood- 
berry says that Shelley had the " kindest feeling of gratitude and respect 
. . . but nothing more " towards Hunt. (Studies in Letters and Life, 
P. 153.) 

106 Ibid., I, p. 158. November 11, 1820. Works of Shelley, VIII, p. 150; 
November 23, 1819. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Byron's Politics and Religion — His sympathy with Hunt in prison — His 
impression of the man — Hunt's Defense of Byron and Criticism of his 
works — The Liberal — Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries. 

It is not strange that Lord Byron, son of an English father 
and a Scotch mother, born of a long line of adventurous and 
warlike sailors and illustrious and loyal knights, with a strain 
of royalty and madness on one side and eccentricity and im- 
morality on the other, should have fallen heir in an unusual 
degree to a nature whose virtues and vices were complex and 
contradictory. Its singularities are nowhere more apparent 
than in the mutations of his friendships. 

Prior to his acquaintance with Hunt, Byron had taken his 
seat in the House of Lords and had made speeches against the 
framebreakers of Nottingham and in behalf of Catholic eman- 
cipation. A month after their meeting he made a third speech 
introducing Major Cartwright's petition for reform in Parlia- 
ment. The second and third of these measures, in particular, 
were warmly advocated by The Examiner, with which paper 
Byron was familiar, as references in his letters show. It is 
therefore not hazardous to surmise that his sympathy with 
liberal policies, alien to his Tory blood and aristocratic spirit, 
was due, in part at least, to this influence. Byron's political 
principles on the whole were as evanescent and intermittent as 
a will-o'-the-wisp. 1 His chief tenets were the assertion of the 
individual; antagonism against all authority; a striving after 

1 Sir Walter Scott has given a good estimate of them : " Our sentiments 
agreed a good deal, except on the subject of religion and politics, upon 
neither of which I was inclined to believe that Lord Byron entertained 
very fixed principles. . . . On Politics he used sometimes to express a 
high strain of what is now called Liberalism ; but it appeared to me that 
the pleasure that it afforded him as a vehicle of displaying his wit and 
satire against individuals in office was at the bottom of his habit of 
thinking. At heart I would have termed Byron a patrician on principle." 
(Moore, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, I, p. 616.) 



89 

freedom. Brandes, Elze and Treitscke agree in attributing his 
political enthusiasm to the intense passion of his nature rather 
than to his moral convictions. 2 His religious convictions were 
as fugitive as his political and, like those of Hunt and other 
advanced thinkers of the age, seem to have been without defer- 
ence to any existing creed or dogma. At his gloomiest mo- 
ments he confessed that he denied nothing but doubted every- 
thing. Hunt says of Byron's religion that he " did not know 
what he was. . . . He was a Christian by education, he was an 
infidel by reading. He was a Christian by habit, but he was no 
Christian upon reflection." 3 The phrase, " I am of the opposi- 
tion " applies to his religion as well as to his politics, as indeed 
it serves as the key-note to almost every action of his life. 

Leigh Hunt has given a characteristic account of his first 
sight of Byron " rehearsing the part of Leander," in the River 
Thames sometime before he went to Greece in 1809: 

" I saw nothing in Lord Byron at that time, but a young man, who, like 
myself, had written a bad volume of poems ; and though I had sympathy 
with him on this account, and more respect for his rank than I was willing 
to suppose, my sympathy was not an agreeable one ; so, contenting myself 
with seeing his lordship's head bob up and down in the water, like a buoy, 
I came away. Lord Byron when he afterwards came to see me in prison, 
was pleased to regret that I had not stayed. He told me, that the sight 
of my volume at Harrow had been one of his incentives to write verses, 
and that he had had the same passion for friendship which I had displayed 
in it. To my astonishment he quoted some of the lines, and would not 
hear me speak ill of them." 4 

Hunt's Juvenilia, beyond having served as one of the incen- 
tives to the writing of Byron's Hours of Idleness, does not 
seem to have affected it. For Hunt's undercurrent of friend- 
ship and cheerfulness were substituted Byron's prevailing notes 
of amorousness and melancholy. 

The actual acquaintance of the two men did not begin until 
1813, when Thomas Moore, since 181 1 a staunch admirer of 
Hunt's political courage and of his literary talent, and one of 
the visitors welcomed to Surrey Gaol, mentioned the circum- 

2 Hancock, The French Revolution and English Poets, p. 84. 

3 Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, p. 128. 

4 Ibid., p. 1 ; Autobiography, II, p. 85. 



90 

stances of his imprisonment to Lord Byron, likewise a sympa- 
thizer with the attitude of The Examiner towards the Prince 
Regent. Mr. Cordy Jeaffreson 5 thinks that it was this reckless 
sympathy with the libeller of the Prince Regent that led Byron 
to reprint with The Corsair, eight lines addressed in 1812 to 
the Princess Charlotte, Weep, daughter of a Royal Line. The 
retaliation of one of the Tory papers goaded Byron to write 
in return an article which strongly resembles Hunt's famous 
libel 6 on the Prince Regent. Byron expressed a wish to call 
on Hunt with Moore, and a visit followd on May 20, 1813. 7 
Five days later Hunt wrote : 

" I have had Lord B. here again. He came on Sunday, by himself, in a 
very frank, unceremonious manner, and knowing what I wanted for my 
poem [Story of Rimini] brought me the last new Travels in Italy in two 
quarto volumes, of which he requests my acceptance, with the air of one 
who did not seem to think himself conferring the least obligation. This 
will please you. It strikes me that he and I shall become friends, literally 
and cordially speaking : there is something in the texture of his mind and 
feelings that seems to resemble mine to a thread ; I think we are cut out 
of the same piece, only a little different wear may have altered our re- 
spective naps a little." * 

With the pride of a sycophant in the presence of a lord Hunt 
relates that Byron would not let the footman carry the books 
but gave "you to understand that he was prouder of being a 
friend and a man of letters than a lord. It was thus by flat- 
tering one's vanity he persuaded us of his own freedom from 
it : for he could see very well, that I had more value for lords 
than I supposed." 9 In June of the same year Hunt invited 
Byron, Moore and Mitchell to dine with him in prison. Among 
several others who came in during the evening was Mr. John 
Scott, later a severe critic of Byron in The Champion} Many 
years after Moore, in his Life of Byron, wrote of the gather- 
ing with venom, recalling Scott as an assailant of Byron's 

5 The Real Lord Byron, I, p. 277. 

6 Letters and Journals, III, pp. 29-31. The article was not published. 
T Nichol, Life of Bryon, p. 84, incorrectly gives 1812 as the date. 

8 Correspondence, I, p. 88, May 25, 1813. 

9 Autobiography, II, p. 85. 

10 The Champion, April 7, 14, 21, 1816. 



91 

"living fame, while another [Hunt] less manful, would reserve 
the cool venom for his grave." 11 

Byron esteemed Hunt greatly during the first year of their 
acquaintance. His advances show a desire for intimacy which 
goes far toward contradicting the statements sometimes made 
that the overtures were on Hunt's side only. 12 Byron ex- 
pressed himself thus at the time : 

" Hunt is an extraordinary character and not exactly of the present age. 
He reminds me more of the Pym and Hampden times — much talent, great 
independence of spirit, and an austere, yet not repulsive, aspect. If he 
goes on qualis ab incepto, I know few men who will deserve more praise 
or obtain it. I must go and see him again — a rapid succession of ad- 
ventures since last summer, added to some serious uneasiness and business, 
have interrupted our acquaintance ; but he is a man worth knowing ; and 
though for his own sake, I wish him out of prison, I like to study character 
in such situations. He has been unshaken and will continue so. I don't 
think him deeply versed in life : — he is the bigot of virtue (not religion) 
and enamoured of the beauty of that ' empty name,' as the last breath of 
Brutus pronounced and every day proves it. He is perhaps, a little 
opinionated, as all men who are the center of circles, wide or narrow — 
the Sir Oracles — in whose name two or three are gathered together — 
must be, and as even Johnson was : but withal, a valuable man, and less 
vain than success and even the consciousness of preferring ' the right to 
the expedient,' might excuse." 

December 2, 1813, he wrote to Hunt: " It is my wish that our 
acquaintance, or, if you please to accept it, friendship, may be 
permanent. ... I have a thorough esteem for that indepen- 
dence of spirit which you have maintained with sterling talent, 
and at the expense of some suffering." 13 Cordial intercourse 
between the two men continued after Hunt's removal from 
Surrey Gaol to lodgings in Edgeware Road, where Byron be- 
came one of his most frequent visitors and correspondents. 
In the Hunt household Byron laid aside his ordinary reserve. 
There are records of his riding the children's rocking horse; 
of presents of game; loans of books; letters presented from a 
Paris correspondent for The Examiner; and gifts of boxes and 
tickets for Drury Lane Theatre, of which he was one of the 

11 Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, p. 402. 

12 Byron, Letters and Journals, II, p. 157, December 1, 1813. 

13 Ibid., II, pp. 296-297. 



92 

managers. This last Hunt would not accept for fear of sac- 
rificing his critical independence. In Lord Byron and Some of 
His Contemporaries, Hunt claims that this familiarity pro- 
ceeded from an " instinct of immeasureable distance." 14 

It was not until Byron's matrimonial difficulties in 1816 that 
Hunt, inert and depressed from his long confinement, bestirred 
himself to return a single one of the calls. Byron's separation 
from his wife in 1816 and the subsequent scandal aroused in 
Hunt that instinctive protection and active loyalty for friends 
abused, already discussed in a review of his relations with 
Keats and Shelley. The conjugal troubles and libertinism of 
the Prince Regent had brought forth only scorn and vitupera- 
tion from the editor of The Examiner, but difficulties of equal 
notoriety at closer range in the lives of his friends evoked only 
sympathy and protection. He asserted that there was no 
positive knowledge as to the cause of the trouble and much 
depraved speculation, envy and falsehood, yet " had he [Byron] 
been as the scandal-mongers represented him, we should never- 
theless, if we thought our arm worth his using, have stood by 
him in his misfortunes to the last." 15 A prophecy of a near 
reconciliation and a too-gushing picture of renewed domes- 
ticity are somewhat grotesque in the light of later events. For 
this defense Byron was very grateful. January 12, 1822, he 
wrote that Scott, Jeffrey and Leigh Hunt " were the only lit- 
erary men of numbers whom I know (and some of whom I 
have served,) who dared venture even an anonymous word in 
my favour, just then . . . the third was under no kind of obli- 
gation to me." 16 Hunt's opinion in the matter underwent a 
transformation after the fateful Italian visit; he then declared 
that Byron wooed with genius, married for money, and strove 
for a reconciliation because of pique. 17 

The Story of Rimini, which had been submitted to Byron 
from time to time and which was dedicated to him, appeared 
likewise in 1816. Byron seems to have accepted the familiar 
tone of the inscription at the time in all good faith " as a 

u Page 36. 15 The Examiner, April 21, 1816. 

16 Letters and Journals, VI, pp. 2-3. 

17 Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, p. 6. 



93 

public compliment and a private kindness " 18 although Black- 
wood's of March, 1828, states, perhaps not seriously, that 
Byron in his copy had substituted for Hunt's name " impudent 
varlet." As late as April n, 1817, Byron wrote from Italy 
that he expected to return to Venice by Ravenna and Rimini 
that he might take notes of the scenery for Hunt. 19 

But a letter to Moore from Venice, June 1, 1818, seems to 
mark a disillusionment on the part of Byron : 

" Hunt's letter is probably the exact piece of vulgar coxcombry that you 
might expect from his situation. He is a good man with some practical 
element in his chaos, but spoilt by the Christ Church Hospital and a 
Sunday newspaper to say nothing of the Surrey Gaol, which converted him 
into a martyr. ... Of my friend Hunt, I have already said that he is 
anything but vulgar in his manners [a statement repeated again in 1822 20 ] ; 
and of his disciples, therefore, I will not judge of their manners from 
their verses. They may be honourable and gentlemanly men for what I 
know ; but the latter quality is studiously excluded from their publica- 
tions." 21 

Hunt did not see or hear from Byron from 181 7 until 1821. 
No further mention of Hunt occurs in Byron's writings dur- 
ing this period except the reference to his influence on Barry 
Cornwall's Sicilian Story and Marcian Colonna, 22 and another 
to the Cockney School in Byron's controversy with Bowles. 
In explanation of this break in the intercourse Hunt said, in 
1828, that " Byron had become not very fond of his reforming 
acquaintances." 23 

Hunt's criticism of Byron's writings was not an important 
factor in his early literary development, as was the case with 
Shelley and Keats. Yet it deserves brief attention. The Ex- 
aminer of October 18, 1812, contained the address of Byron 
on the opening of the Drury Lane Theatre and a commenda- 
tion of its " natural domestic touch " and of its independence. 

18 Letters and Journals, III, p. 265. 

19 In 1820 Byron translated the Rimini episode of the Divine Comedy. 
^Trelawney, Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron, p. 109. 
21 Letters and Journals, V, pp. 590-591. 

-Letters and Journals, V, p. 217. This passage is omitted from the letter 
in which it occurs in Moore's Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, II, 
P. 437- 

23 Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, p. 8. 



94 

Hunt's Feast of the Poets as it appeared first in The Reflector 
contained no mention of Byron. The separate edition of 
1814 devoted seven pages of the added notes to a wordy dis- 
cussion of his work and to personal advice. Byron in a 
letter of February 9, 1814, thanked Hunt for the " handsome 
note." The next mentions of Bryon were in The Examiner: 
a notice of his ode on Napoleon April 24, 1814; Illustrations 
of Lord Byron's Works on September 4 of the same year; 
an elegy, Oh Snatched Away in Beauty's Bloom, April 23, 
1815; The Renegade's Feelings Among the Tombs of Heroes, 
March 3, 1816; and finally, an announcement of an opera 
founded on The Corsair, August 31, 18 17. A review of 
the first and second cantos of Don Juan appeared in The 
Examiner of October 31, 1819. Byron's extraordinary variety 
and sudden transition of mood, his power in wielding satire 
and humor, his knowledge of human nature in its highest and 
lowest passions, his contribution to the mock-heroic and the 
sincere, the "strain of rich and deep beauty " in the descrip- 
tions were pointed out. Any immoral tendency is denied : 
" The fact is at the bottom of these questions, that many 
things are made vicious which are not so by nature ; and many 
things made virtuous, which are only so by calling and agree- 
ment; and it is on the horns of this self-created dilemma, that 
society is continually writhing and getting desperate ! " The 
Examiner of August 26, 1821 containing a critique of the 
third and fourth cantos of Don Juan, condemned the " care- 
less contempt of canting moralists." January 23, 1820, there 
was a notice in The Examiner telling of Byron's munificence 
to a shoemaker; in comment The Examiner said: "His lord- 
ship's virtues are his own. His frailties have been made for 
him, in more respects than one, by the faults and follies of 
society." January 21, 1822, appeared a reprint of My Boat 
Is on the Shore; April 22, the two stanzas from Childe Harold 
beginning, Italia, Oh! Italia; April 29, Byron's Letters on 
Bowles's Strictures on Pope; May 26, a review of two of 
Bowles's letters to Byron ; July 29, an article entitled Sketches 
of the Living Poets. 2i The last gave a biographical account 

24 Hunt wrongly gives Byron's date of birth as 1791. The article is 
accompanied with a woodcut. 



95 

of Byron. The general traits of his poety were said to be 
passion, humour, and learning. It criticized the narrative 
poems as " too melodramatic, hasty and vague." Hunt's sum- 
mary of the dramas and of Don Juan shows excellent judg- 
ment : " For the drama, whatever good passages such a writer 
will always put forth, we hold that he has no more quali- 
fications than we have ; his tendency being to spin every 
thing out of his own perceptions, and colour it with his own 
eye. His Don Juan is perhaps his best work, and the one 
by which he will stand or fall with readers who see beyond 
time and toilets. It far surpasses, in our opinion, all the 
Italian models on which it is founded, not excepting the far 
famed Secchia Rapita.'' 25 On June 2, 1822, The Examiner 
reviewed Cain. The article is chiefly a discussion of the 
origin of evil. The issue of September 30 contained a reprint 
of America; that of November 18 denied Byron's author- 
ship of Anastasius. From July 5, 1823, to November 29 of 
the same year, there appeared in the Literary Examiner 
friendly criticisms of the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, 
eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth cantos of Don 
Juan. The reviews consisted chiefly of extracts and a sum- 
mary of the narrative. 

The Liberal. 

A letter from Lord Byron dated December 25, 1820, had 
proposed to Thomas Moore to set up secretly, on their return 
to London, a weekly newspaper for the purpose of giving 

" the age some new lights upon policy, poesy, biography, criticism, morality, 
theology, and all other ism, ality and ology whatsoever. Why, man, if we 
were to take to this in good earnest, your debts would be paid off in a 
twelvemonth, and by dint of a little diligence and practice, I doubt not 
that we could distance the common-place blackguards who have so long 
disgraced common sense and the common reader. They have no merit 
but practice and imprudence, both of which we may acquire ; and, as for 
talent and culture, the devil's in't if such proofs as we have given of both 
can't furnish out something better than the ' funeral baked meats ' which 
have coldly set forth the breakfast table of Great Britain for so many 
years." 2e 

25 See Blackwood's, X, pp. 286, 730. 

26 Letters and Journals, V, pp. 143-144. 



96 

Moore cautiously refused the offer and the idea lay dormant 
in Byron's mind until he met Shelley at Ravenna in 1821. 
He then proposed that they should establish a radical paper 
with Leigh Hunt as editor, the three to be equal partners. 
Power, money, and notoriety were Byron's chief objects. He 
frankly acknowledged a desire for enormous gains. He de- 
signed to use his proprietory privileges to publish those of his 
writings that Murray dared not. At the same time Byron had, 
without doubt, a desire to reform home government and to 
repay Hunt for his public defense in 1816. 27 He may have 
wished to please Shelley by asking Hunt. 28 Undoubtedly he 
valued Hunt's wide journalistic experience. Moore asserts 
that in extending the invitation, Byron inconsistently admitted 
Hunt " not to any degree of confidence or intimacy but to a 
declared fellowship of fame and interest." 29 This, like other 
of Moore's statements regarding Hunt, is not very plausible in 
view of the past intimacy. 

The most discussed question regarding Byron's motives in 
inviting Hunt is the extent of his relation to The Examiner 
at that time, and Byron's knowledge of it. Trelawny states 
that when Byron "consented to join Leigh Hunt and others 
in writing for the ' Liberal,' I think his principal inducement 
was in the belief that John and Leigh Hunt were proprietors 
of the ' Examiner ' ; — so when Leigh Hunt at Pisa told him 
that he was no longer connected with that paper, Byron was 
taken aback, finding that Hunt would be entirely dependent 
upon the success of their hazardous project, while he him- 
self would be deprived of that on which he had set his heart, — 
the use of a weekly paper in great circulation." 30 Moore 
heard indirectly in 1821 that Byron, Shelley and Hunt were 
to "conspire together" in The Examiner 2,1 — a plan nowhere 
mentioned in the writings of the three men concerned and most 
unlikely. What Trelawney " thought " conflicts with what 

27 Medwin, Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron, p. 186. 
2S Jeaffreson, The Real Lord Byron, II, p. 186, says that Byron through 
Shelley's mediation could secure Hunt as editor. 

29 Ibid., Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, II, p. 626. 

80 Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron, p. 157. 

81 See p. 103. 



97 

Moore " heard." The suggestions of both are open to doubt. 
Byron was most assuredly the projector of The Liberal and 
did not "consent to join Leigh Hunt and others." Besides, 
granting that Trelawney's opinion was based on a statement 
of Byron's, even that would not be convincing, since Byron 
made a number of mis-statements about the matter after he 
grew weary of it. Questionable as the assertion is, it has 
been made the basis of accusations against Hunt of deliberate 
deceit and of breach of contract. Had it been true that there was 
an understanding of cooperation between the two papers, Byron 
and Moore would have made much of the charge. Trelaw- 
ney's opinion, first noticed by Blackwood's in March, 1828, 
has been elaborated by Jeaffreson, 32 and accepted by Leslie 
Stephen 33 and Kent. 34 Elze, who seems to have labored under 
the impression that Harold Skimpole was a faithful portrait- 
ure of Hunt, states that his connection with Byron began with 
a falsehood. 35 R. B. Johnson says, in defense of Hunt, that 
the accusation " is quite unreasonable and contrary to all the 
evidence." 36 Monkhouse thinks that it is doubtful if Byron 
reckoned on the support of the London paper. 37 J. Ashcroft 
Noble says that Byron had much to say about the Hunts in 
his letters, " and made the most of all kinds of trivial or 
imaginary grievances ; it is simply incredible that had a griev- 
ance of such reality and magnitude as this • really existed he 
would have refrained from mentioning it." As proof against 
it, he quotes Byron's belief in Hunt's honesty as late as Sep- 
tember 1822; and he points out the "obvious absurdity of the 
idea that in the year 1822 a weekly newspaper could be con- 
ducted successfully, or at all, by an editor in Pisa or Genoa." 38 
The strong probability, gathered from all the extant evidence, 
is that Byron and Shelley, in inviting Hunt to Italy, expected, 
and very naturally, that he would continue to share in the 
profits of The Examiner. Shelley, indeed, in a letter dated 

32 The Real Lord Byron, II, p. 186. 

33 Dictionary of National Biography. 

34 Leigh Hunt as Poet and Essayist, p. 30. 

35 Life of Byron, pp. 266-267. M Leigh Hunt, p. 37, note. 
"Life of Leigh Hunt, p. 154. 

33 The Sonnet in England, pp. 118-119. 



98 

as late as January 25, 1822, urged Hunt not to leave England 
without a regular income from that journal 39 — an injunction 
which Hunt unfairly disregarded. It is also likely that his 
connection with The Examiner was one of Byron's reasons in 
extending the partnership to include Hunt. But it is practi- 
cally certain that there was no contract nor even understanding 
as regards the cooperation of The Liberal and the London 
paper. The question does not therefore, involve Hunt's honor 
at all. If Byron expected to profit by the influence of The 
Examiner, his silence shows a manliness that Noble does not 
credit him with. 

Hunt, in accepting Byron's offer, was actuated by motives 
both selfish and unselfish. The fine of ii,ooo imposed at the 
time of his conviction of libel was not all paid ; The Indicator 
had been abandoned ; The Examiner was on its last legs ; his 
health was broken by overwork undertaken in the effort not to 
call upon his friends for aid ; 40 an invalid wife and seven 
children were to be supported by his pen ; his brother John was 
in prison. From January, 1821, to August of the same year 
he had been unable to write. In accepting Byron's offer he 
thought to recover his health in a southern climate, to regain 
his political influence which had been on the decrease during 
the last four or five years, and at the same time to aid aggres- 
sively the liberal movement. 41 Moreover, he was flattered im- 
mensely by the prospective public association with Lord Byron. 
He had little to lose and a prospect of large gain. Hunt 
should have weighed more gravely such a step before he em- 
barked on such a hazardous venture with so large a family, 
but, with a buoyancy and irresponsibility in practical affairs 
peculiar to himself, he clutched at the new proposition as a 
way out of all difficulties and did not look beyond immediate 
necessities. He pictured himself and his family healthy and 
wealthy in a land he had always sighed for. If the skies 
lowered, he fancied Shelley always at hand. His description 
of preparations for the voyage is as airy as his pocketbook was 
light : " My family, therefore, packed up such goods and 

* Works of Shelley, VIII, p. 255. 

40 Correspondence I, p. 161. ^Autobiography, II, p. 59. 



99 

chattels as they had a regard for, my books in particular, and 
we took, with strange new thoughts and feelings, but in high 
expectation, our journey by sea." 42 

The part Shelley played in the invitation to Hunt is more 
difficult of interpretation. The original proposition to become 
an equal partner in the transaction he never seriously enter- 
tained. He consented to become a contributor only. His 
reasons for his refusal he gave to others, but, for fear of 
endangering Hunt's prospects, withheld from Byron; for the 
same reason he dissembled at times concerning his real feel- 
ings. Yet he was equally responsible with Byron in extend- 
ing the invitation to Hunt, as will be shown later. Although 
Shelley could not have foreseen the full consequences of such 
a course of action, he was deficient in frankness toward Byron 
and undoubtedly sacrificed him somewhat in the transaction to 
his affection for Hunt. While Byron continued to hold the 
highest opinion of Shelley, between the time of their meeting in 
Switzerland and at Ravenna, Shelley had experienced three 
separate revulsions of feeling. 43 At the time in question his 
distrust had returned. 

42 Autobiography, II, p. 59. 

43 After Shelley's meeting with Byron in Switzerland in 181 6, before 
they met again in Venice, there had been a lapse of two years bridged 
only by a not always pleasant correspondence relating to Allegra, Byron's 
natural daughter. Shelley occupied the unenviable position of mediator 
between him and Jane Clairmont, the child's mother. Yet when the two 
men met again in August, 1818, it was at first on the terms recorded in 
Julian and Maddalo. Byron's influence served as a stimulus to this and 
to other poems of the same period. By December of that year Shelley's 
opinion of Byron had changed ; on the 22.A, he wrote to Peacock of 
Childe Harold in terms that show how quickly his views could alter : 
" The spirit in which it is written, is, if insane, the most wicked and 
mischievous insanity that was ever given forth. It is a kind of obstinate 
and self-willed folly, in which he hardens himself. I remonstrated with 
him in vain on the tone of mind from which such a view of things alone 
arises. . . . He (Byron) associates with wretches who seem to have 
lost the gait and physiognomy of man, and who do not scruple to avow 
practices, which are not only not named, but I believe seldom even con- 
ceived in England. He says he disapproves, but he endures. He is 
heartily and deeply discontented with himself; and contemplating in the 
distorts, mirror of his own thoughts the nature and destiny of man, what 



100 

Hunt's pecuniary troubles made their relations still more diffi- 
cult. This state of affairs between Byron and Shelley must 
have given Hunt great concern, and Shelley suspecting his 

can he behold but objects of contempt and despair? But that he is a 
great poet, I think the address to Ocean proves. And he has a certain 
degree of candour while you talk to him, but unfortunately it does not 
outlast your departure. No, I do not doubt, and for his own sake, I 
ought to hope, that his present career must soon end in some violent 
circumstance." (Works of Shelley, VIII, pp. 80-81.) 

From the close of 1818 until 1821, they were again separated. Their 
correspondence, as previously, related chiefly to Allegra and was of a still 
less agreeable nature. Byron had refused to deal directly with Jane 
Clairmont and all communications had to pass through Shelley's hands. 
In the interval, as though in retaliation, Byron had believed the Shiloh 
story, a fabrication by a nurse of the Shelleys that Jane Clairmont was 
Shelley's mistress, but he does not seem to have condemned such a state 
of affairs. (Letters and Journals, V, p. 86, October, 1820.) Yet he testi- 
fied in his letters his great admiration of Shelley's poetry (Ibid., VI, p. 
387), and after his death he called him " The best and least selfish man I 
ever knew." (Ibid., VI, p. 98; August 3, 1822.) But before 1821, a rever- 
sal of the opinion formed in Shelley's mind at the time of Byron's Venetian 
excesses, came about. November 11, 1820, he wrote to Mrs. Hunt: "His 
indecencies, too, both against sexual nature, and against human nature in 
general, sit very awkwardly upon him. He only affects the libertine ; 
he is, really, a very amiable, friendly and agreeable man, I hear." (Hunt, 
Correspondence, I, p. 139.) This corroborates Thornton Hunt's state- 
ment that Byron had risen in Shelley's estimation before 1821 and that 
otherwise The Liberal would never have been started. (Atlantic Monthly, 
February, 1863.) 

At Byron's invitation they met again in Ravenna. Shelley's letters dated 
from there show unstinted admiration of Byron's genius and of the man 
himself. He wrote in August, 1821, that he was living a " life totally 
the reverse of that which he led at Venice. . . . (Works of Shelley, 
VIII, p. 211, August 7, 1821.) L. B. is greatly improved in every respect. 
In genius, in temper, in moral views, in health, in happiness. . . . He 
has had mischievous passions, but these he seems to have subdued, and 
he is becoming what he should be, a virtuous man. . . . (Ibid., VIII, p. 
217, August 10, 1 82 1.) Lord Byron and I are excellent friends, and were 
I reduced to poverty, or were I a writer who had no claims to a higher 
station than I possess — or did I possess a higher than I deserve, we 
should appear in all things as such, and I would freely ask him any 
favour. Such is not now the case. The daemon of mistrust and pride 
lurks between two persons in our station, poisoning the freedom of our 
intercourse. This is a tax and a heavy one, which we must pay for 
being human." Of Don Juan he wrote : " It sets him not only above, 



101 

distress wrote March 2, 1822: "The aspect of affairs has 
somewhat changed since the date of that in which I expressed 
a repugnance to a continuance of intimacy with Lord Byron 
as close as that which now exists ; at least it has changed so far 
as regards you and the intended journal." 44 

In January, 1821, Mrs. Hunt wrote Mary Shelley, begging 

but far above, all the poets of the day — every word is stamped with 
immortality. I despair of rivalling Lord Byron, as well I may, and there 
is no other with whom it is worth contending. (Ibid., VIII, p. 219, August 
10, 1821.) During the visit Shelley served as ambassador to the Countess 
Guiccioli in persuading her not to go to Switzerland, and in the same 
capacity to Byron in the arrangement of Allegra's affairs. It was then 
settled that Byron should reside for the winter at Pisa. Shelley had 
misgivings about such an arrangement on his own and on Miss Clair- 
mont's account, for he had previously intended to settle in the same 
vicinity. He finally decided not to let it make any difference in his 
plans. In January, 1822, Shelley wrote from Pisa to Peacock: "Lord 
Byron is established here, and we are his constant companions. No small 
relief this, after the dreary solitude of the understanding and the imagina- 
tion in which we passed the first years of our expatriation, yoked to all 
sorts of miseries and discomforts. ... if you before thought him a 
great poet, what is your opinion now that you have read Cain?" (Works 
of Shelley, VIII, p. 249; January 11, 1822.) During the same month he 
wrote to John Gisborne : "What think you of Lord Byron now? Space 
wondered less at the swift and fair creations of God, when he grew weary 
of vacancy, than I at this spirit of an angel in the mortal paradise of a 
decaying body." (Ibid., VIII, p. 251, January, 1822.) 

A letter to Leigh Hunt gives the first intimation of the return of the ill- 
feeling toward Byron : " Past circumstances between Lord B. and me render 
it impossible that I should accept any supply from him for my own use, or 
that I should ask for yours if the contribution could be supposed in any man- 
ner to relieve me, or to do what I could otherwise have done." (Works of 
Shelley, VIII, p. 253, January 25, 1822.) This referred to more entangle- 
ments with Byron about Allegra. Shelley wrote to Jane Clairmont : " It 
is of vital importance, both to me and yourself, to Allegra even, that I 
should put a period to my intimacy with Lord Byron, and that without 
eclat. No sentiments of honour and of justice restrain him (as I 
strongly suspect) from the basest suspicion, and the only mode in which 
I could effectually silence him I am reluctant (even if I had proof) to 
employ during my father's life. But for your immediate feelings, I 
would suddenly and irrevocably leave the country which he inhabits, nor 
even enter it but as an enemy to determine our differences without words." 
(The Nation, XLVIII, p. 116.) 

44 Works of Shelley, VIII, p. 258. 



102 

that they might come to Italy. The subject was thus revived 
and a formal invitation was conveyed in a letter of August 26, 
1 82 1, from Shelley to Hunt. It proves beyond a doubt that 
Byron was the chief projector of the journal: 

" He (Byron) proposes that you should come out and go shares with him 
and me, in a periodical work, to be conducted here ; in which each of the 
contracting parties should publish all their original compositions and share 
the profits. . . . There can be no doubt that the profits of any scheme in 
which you and Lord Byron engage, must, from various, yet co-operating 
reasons, be very great. As for myself, I am, for the present, only a sort 
of link between you and him, until you can know each other and effectuate 
the arrangement ; since (to entrust you with a secret which, for your sake, 
I withhold from Lord Byron), nothing would induce me to share in the 
profits, and still less, in the borrowed splendor of such a partnership. 
You and he, in different manners, would be equal, and would bring, in a 
different manner, but in the same proportion, equal stocks of reputation 
and success. ... I did not ask Lord Byron to assist me in sending a 
remittance for your journey; because there are men, however excellent, 
from whom we would never receive an obligation, in the worldly sense 
of the word; and I am as jealous for my friend as for myself. . . . He 
has many generous and exalted qualities, but the canker of aristocracy 
wants to be cut out." 45 

Hunt's answer was full of expectation and hope. He wrote 
that " Are there not three of us ? . . . We will divide the 
world between us, like the Triumvirate, and you shall be the 
sleeping partner, if you will." 46 To Shelley's reply of October 
6, thanking him for coming, Hunt answered : " You say, 
Shelley, you thank me for coming. The pleasure of being 
obliged by those we love is so great that I do not wonder that 
you continue to muster up some obligation to me, but if you 
are obliged, how much am I ? " i7 . 

From the beginning of the enterprise Thomas Moore and 
John Murray scented trouble and made more. They con- 
tinued their intermeddling after The Liberal was launched, and 
doubtless ministered to Byron's vacillation. Hunt and Murray 
had disagreed over the Story of Rimini iS and an attack on 
Southey in The Examiner of May 11 and 18, 1817, had in- 

45 Ibid., VIII, p. 235, August 26, 1821. 

46 Correspondence, I, p. 172, September 21, 1821. 
"Ibid., I, p. 174, November 16, 1821. 

48 Byron, Letters and Journals, IV, p. 129, June 4, 1817. 



103 

eluded Murray as well. Moreover, Murray saw in John Hunt, 49 
the publisher of the new periodical, a dangerous future rival in 
his business relations with Byron. After matters became un- 
pleasant in Italy, Murray took his revenge by making public 
Byron's letters containing ill-natured remarks about Hunt. 50 
The relations of Moore and Hunt had been very friendly 51 but 
at this juncture both became too proud of having a " noble 
lord " for a friend. 52 

Moore, writing to Byron in the latter part of 1821, said: 
" I heard some time ago that Leigh Hunt was on his way to 
Genoa with all of his family ; and the idea seems to be, that you 
and Shelley and he are to conspire together in The Examiner. 
I cannot believe this — and deprecate such a plan with all my 
might. Alone you may do anything, but partnerships in fame, 
like those in trade, make the strongest party answerable for 
the deficiencies or delinquencies of the rest, and I tremble even 
for you with such a bankrupt company. . . . They are both 
clever fellows, and Shelley I look upon as a man of real 
genius ; but, I must say again, you could not give your enemies 
(the . . . s 'et hoc genus omne') a greater triumph than by 
joining such an unequal and unholy alliance," 53 an astounding 
statement from a man of pronounced liberal views. Byron's 
answer of January 24 was indefinite and perhaps inten- 
tionally misleading : " Be assured that there is no such coalition 
as you apprehend." 54 February 19, Moore advised Byron not 

49 Ibid., VI, pp. 117, 122, 127, 129, 134, 138, 158. 

30 Ibid., VI, p. 156. 

51 In 1814 Moore showed considerable pride in being included as one of 
(L the four poets to sup with Apollo in the Feast of the Poets and said that 
he was " particularly flattered by praise from Hunt, because he is one 
of the most honest and candid men " that he knew. (Memoirs, Journal 
and Correspondence, II, p. 159.) In 1819 Hunt had urged upon Perry, 
the editor of the Morning Chronicle, the necessity of a public subscription 
for Moore. (Ibid., II, p. 340). An unfavorable review of Moore's political 
principles in The Examiner during the same year may have done something 
to bring about the change in Moore's feelings, though he was eulogized 
in a later issue of January 21, 1821. 

82 B. W. Procter, An Autobiographical Fragment, p. 153. 

K Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, II, p. 583. 

"Ibid., II, p. 582. 



104 

to discuss religious matters in the new work, but to confine 
himself to political theories; "if you have any political cata- 
marans to explode this (London) is your place." 55 After The 
Liberal was begun, Moore wrote : " It grieves me to urge any- 
thing so much against Hunt's interest, but I should not hesi- 
tate to use the same language to himself were I near him. I 
would, if I were you, serve him in every possible way but this — 
I would give him (if he would accept of it) the profits of the 
same works, published separately — but I would not mix myself 
up in this way with others. I would not become a partner in 
this sort of miscellaneous ' pot au feu ' where the bad flavour 
of one ingredient is sure to taint all the rest. I would be, if 
I were you, alone, single-handed and as such, invincible." 56 

The Hunts started for Italy November 15, 1821, but on ac- 
count of various setbacks and delays did not really leave the 
coast of England until May 13, 1822. In the ten months 
which elapsed between the invitation to Hunt and his arrival, 
it is not surprising that Byron's enthusiasm had cooled. He 
would have withdrawn if he could have done so, although 
Byron, Trelawny says, was at first more eager than Shelley 
for Hunt's arrival. 57 As has already been stated above, affairs 
between Byron and Shelley had been very strained in January. 
In the letter of March 2, already referred to, Shelley informed 
Hunt that matters had improved between Byron and himself 
and that Byron expressed the " greatest eagerness to proceed 
with the journal, he dilates with impatience on the delay, and 
he disregards the opinion of those who have advised him 
against it." 

Shelley thought that their strained relations would in no 
way interfere with Hunt's prospects, and, with what looks 
a little like double-dealing, that it would be possible for him 
to preserve what influence he had over the " Proteus " until 
Hunt arrived : " It will be no very difficult task to execute that 
you have assigned me — to keep him in heart with the project 

55 Ibid., II, p. 584. 

66 Jeaffreson, The Real Lord Byron, II, p. 188. 

67 Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron, p. m. 



105 

until your arrival." 58 April 10, Shelley wrote again to Hunt 
of Byron's eagerness for his arrival : " he urges me to press 
you to depart." But a reference to the state of affairs in the 
two households in Italy carries a foreboding note : " Lord 
Byron has made me bitterly feel the inferiority which the 
world has presumed to place between us, and which subsists 
nowhere in reality but in our own talents, which are not our 
own but Nature's — or in our rank, which is not our own but 
Fortune's." With his usual humility, Shelley closes the letter 
with an apology for carrying his jealousy of Byron into Hunt's 
relations with him, and says : " You in the superiority of a 
wise and tranquil nature have well corrected and justly re- 
proved me . . . you will find much in me to correct and re- 
prove." 59 During the summer Shelley continued to shrink 
more than ever from Byron ; June 18 he declared to Hunt that 
he would not be the link between them for Byron is the 
" nucleus of all that is hateful." His one dread was that he 
might injure Hunt's prospects. 60 Between April and July 
Byron's enthusiasm had again cooled. Trelawny relates that 
Shelley when he went to Leghorn to meet Hunt, was greatly 
depressed by Lord Byron's " shuffling and equivocating," and, 
" but for imperilling Hunt's prospects," that Shelley would 
have abruptly terminated their intercourse. 61 On July 4 
Shelley wrote to Mary from Pisa that " things are in the 
worst possible situation with respect to poor Hunt. . . . Lord 
Byron must of course furnish the requisite funds at present, 
as I cannot, but he seems inclined to depart without the neces- 
sary explanations and arrangements due to such a situation as 
Hunt's. These, in spite of delicacy, I must procure." 62 This 
dual attitude of Shelley has been variously viewed. Professor 
Dowden thinks it a "triumph of diplomacy," 63 while Jeaffreson 
deems it a conspiracy of Hunt and Shelley against the innocent 
and unsuspecting Byron. 

68 Nicoll, Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, p. 353, March, 
1822. 
B *Ibid., p. 356. c0 Fortnightly, XXIX, p. 850. 

81 Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron, p. 112. 

62 Works of Shelley, VIII, p. 288-289. 

63 Life of Shelley, II, p. 459. 



106 

Hunt gave the following ominous description of his first call 
upon Lord Byron : " The day was very hot ; the road to Mount 
Nero was very hot, through dusty suburbs; and when I got 
there I found the hottest looking house I ever saw. It was 
salmon colour. Think of this, flaring over the country in a 
hot Italian sun ! But the greatest of all the heats was within. 
Upon seeing Lord Byron, I hardly knew him, he was grown so 
fat; and he was longer in recognizing me, I had grown so 
thin." 04 Hunt wrote to England that Byron received him with 
marked cordiality 65 but Shelley's friend Williams, in his last 
letter to his wife, stated that Byron treated Hunt vilely and 
" actually said as much that he did not wish his name to be 
attached to the work, and of course to theirs " ; that his treat- 
ment of Mrs. Hunt was "most shameful"; and that his "con- 
duct cut H. to the soul." 66 The Hunt family was quickly 
quartered on the ground floor of Byron's palace, which Byron 
had furnished at a cost of £6o. 67 Shelley's sensible sugges- 
tions to Hunt about his furniture, 68 about the income from The 
Examiner, and worse still, his delicately given advice that it 
was not possible for him to bring all of his family, had been 
ignored. 69 

With Shelley's tragic death a few days after their arrival, 
the only " link of the two thunderbolts," 70 as he had called 
himself, was broken. Hunt was left in an awkward position 
which no one could have foreseen. A few days later he wrote 
to friends at home of Byron's kindness. 71 In 1828 he gave a 
different version : 

" Lord Byron requested me to look upon him as standing in Mr. S.'s place. 
My heart died within me to hear him ; I made the proper acknowledgment, 
but I knew what he meant, and I more than doubted whether even in that, 
the most trivial part of the friendship, he could resemble Mr. Shelley, if 

64 Autobiography, II, p. 94. 65 Correspondence, I, p. 86. 

^Monkhouse, Life of Leigh Hunt, p. 156. 

67 Hunt refuted the statement that Byron had walled off part of his dwel- 
ling and furnished it handsomely. {Lord Byron and Some of His Con- 
temporaries, p. 14 ff.) 

68 Works of Shelley, VIII, pp. 242, 253. 

69 Nicoll and Wise, Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, p. 
342, December 22, 1818. 

70 Works of Shelley, VIII, p. 286. T1 Correspondence, I, p. 190. 



107 

he would. Circumstances unfortunately rendered the matter of too much 
importance to me at the moment. I had reason to fear : — I was com- 
pelled to try : — and things turned out as I had dreaded. The public have 
been given to understand that Lord Byron's purse was at my command, 
and that I used it according to the spirit with which it was offered. J did 
so. Stern necessity and a family compelled me." 72 

With the magazine scarcely likely to yield an income for 
some time, it was absolutely necessary for Hunt to get money 
from somewhere for living expenses and, Shelley gone, there 
was no one left to tide over the interval but Byron. The latter 
did not relish the position of sole banker to a family of nine 
and doled out £70 in small doses through his steward, Hunt 
says, just as if his " disgraces were being counted." 73 He was 
embittered by his position as suppliant and dependent, though 
there is nothing to show that he was ever refused what he 
asked for or requested to pay back what he owed. 74 

Hunt's entire money obligation to Byron has been compre- 
hensively calculated by Gait at £500: £200 for the journey from 
England, £70 at Pisa for living expenses, the cost of the jour- 
ney from Pisa to Genoa, and £30 from Genoa to Florence. 
Gait thought the use of the ground floor a small favor since 
Byron could use only one floor for himself. Such practices 
were very common, Italian palaces often being built for that 
purpose. 75 It is likely that until the step was irrevocable 
Byron did not correctly gauge Hunt's resources and the re- 
sponsibility which he was assuming in transporting a large 
family to a foreign country. If he did, he expected to share 
the burden with Shelley. Had Hunt been financially inde- 
pendent, it is probable that he and Byron would have remained 
on amicable enough terms, for the former asserts that the first 
time he was treated with disrespect was when Byron knew he 
was in want. 76 Yet that neither Shelley nor Byron were wholly 
ignorant of what to expect before Hunt's arrival in Italy is 
apparent from Shelley's letter to Byron, February 15, 1822: 

™ Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, p. 18. 
"Ibid., p. 18. 

T1 " I could always procure what I wanted from Lord Byron, and living 
here is divinely cheap." (Correspondence, I, p. 198, November 7, 1822.) 
TS Life of Byron, p. 242. 
Ti Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, p. 6. 



108 

" Hunt had urged me more than once to ask you to lend him this money. 
My answer consisted in sending him all I could spare, which I have now 
literally done. Your kindness in fitting up a part of your own home for 
his accommodation I sensibly felt, and willingly accept from you on his 
part, but, believe me, without the slightest intention of imposing, or, if I 
could help it, of allowing to be imposed, any heavier task on your purse. 
As it has come to this in spite of my exertions, I will not conceal from 
you the low ebb of my own money affairs in the present moment, — that is, 
my absolute incapacity of assisting Hunt further. I do not think poor 
Hunt's promise to pay in a given time is worth very much, but mine is 
less subject to uncertainty, and I should be happy to be responsible for 
any engagement he may have proposed to you." " 

Mrs. Hunt seems to have widened further the breach be- 
tween the two men. 78 She did not speak Italian and the 
Countess Guiccioli, the head of Byron's establishment, did not 
speak English. Neither made any linguistic efforts and conse- 
quently there was no intercourse between the families of the 
two households. This, Hunt later says, was the first cause of 
diminished cordiality between Byron and himself. The Hunt 
children were a further cause of trouble. Byron wrote of 
them to Mrs. Shelley : " They were dirtier and more mis- 
chievous than Yahoos. What they can't destroy with their 
feet they will with their fingers." 79 Again he described them 
as "six little blackguards . . . kraal out of the Hottentot 
country." 80 

The question of rank was a thorn in the flesh, particularly 
to Hunt. While in open theory he had no respect for titles, 

77 Works of Shelley, VIII, p. 257. 

78 She used no tact in her dealings with Lord Byron. She let him see 
that she had no respect for rank or titles. She even went beyond the 
limits of courtesy in her remarks to him. On Byron's saying, " What do 
you think, Mrs. Hunt ? Trelawny had been speaking of my morals ! What 
do you think of that?" "It is the first time," said Mrs. Hunt, "I ever 
heard of them." (Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, p. 27). 
Of his portrait by Harlowe she said " that it resembled a great schoolboy, 
who had had a plain bun given him, instead of a plum one," a facetious 
speech indiscreetly repeated by Hunt to Byron. 

79 Letters and Journals, VI, p. 124. 

80 Ibid., VI, pp. 119— 120. Hunt's view was quite different. Byron was, 
he thought, intimidated " out of his reasoning " by his children and their 
principles. (Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, p. 28.) 



109 

in actual practice he groveled before them. Pride, as he 
thought, had made him decline all advances from men of rank, 
but it was more with the air of being afraid to trust himself 
than with real indifference. His exception, made in the case 
of Lord Byron, is thus explained : " But talents, poetry, sim- 
ilarity of political opinion, flattery of early sympathy with my 
boyish writings, more flattering offers of friendship and the 
last climax of flattery, an earnest waiving of his rank, were 
too much for me in the person of Lord Byron." 81 On the 
renewal of the acquaintance in Italy, the very familiar attitude 
seen in the dedication of the Story of Rimini, which Hunt 
himself had decided was " foolish," was changed at the advice 
of Shelley to an extremely formal manner of address. Hunt 
says that Byron did not like the change. 82 As a matter of fact, 
six years of separation had brought about other more impor- 
tant changes : Byron had grown more selfish and avaricious, 
Hunt more helpless and vain. 

Three months were spent in Pisa after Shelley's death. In 
September the two families left for Genoa, travelling in sepa- 
rate parties and, on their arrival, settling in separate homes, 
the Hunts with Mrs. Shelley. From this time on there was 
little intercourse between Byron and Hunt. October 9, 1822, 
Byron wrote to England and denied that all three families were 
living under one roof. He said that he rarely saw Hunt, not 
more than once a month. 83 Hunt to the contrary said that 
they saw less of each other than in Genoa yet " considerable." 84 
Although at no time was there an open breach, yet cordiality 
and sympathy were wholly lost on both sides in the strain of 
the financial situation. They failed of agreement even on im- 
personal matters. Byron had looked forward with great 
pleasure to Hunt's companionship. Before they met he had 
written : " When Leigh Hunt comes we shall have banter 
enough about those old ruffiani, the old dramatists, with their 
tiresome conceits, their jingling rhymes, and endless play upon 

81 Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, p. 32. 

83 Ibid., p. 30. 

8S Letters and Journals, VI, pp. 157, 167. 

84 Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, p. 64. 



110 

words." 85 This pleasant anticipation was not realized, for 
Hunt's sensitiveness in petty matters and Byron's scorn of 
Hunt's affectation and of his ill-bred personal applications, 86 or 
so the hearer interpreted them, reduced safe topics to Boswell's 
Life of Johnson. Even a mutual admiration of Pope and 
Dryden was forgotten. Literary jealousy and vanity fed the. 
flames. Hunt was unable to appreciate manhood of Byron's 
virile type, and he did not try to conceal the fact from one 
who was hungry for praise. On the other hand, Byron did 
not render to Hunt the homage he was accustomed to receive 
from the Cockney circle and had nothing but contempt for all 
his works except the Story of Rimini. A statement in the 
anonymous Life of Lord Byron, published by Iley, that the 
misunderstanding was the result of a criticism by Hunt of 
Parisina in the Leghorn and Lucca newspapers and that Byron 
never spoke to him after the discovery 87 is a fabrication as 
unsubstantial as the greater part of the other statements in the 
same book. Hunt denied the charge. His sole connection 
with Parisina was that he supplied the incident of the heroine 
talking in her sleep, 88 a device that he had already made use of 
in Rimini. 

On his arrival in Italy Hunt wrote back to England that 
Byron entered into The Liberal with great ardor, and that he 
had presented the Vision of Judgment to his brother and him- 
self for their mutual benefit. 89 Yet four days later in a letter 
to Moore Byron wrote : " Hunt seems sanguine about the 
matter but (entre nous) I am not. I do not, however, like to 
put him out of spirits by saying so, for he is bilious and unwell. 
Do, pray, answer this letter immediately. Do send Hunt any- 
thing in prose or verse of yours, to start him handsomely — 
and lyrical, meal, or what you please." 90 At the time of 
Trelawny's first visit after the work had begun, Byron said 
impatiently : " It will be an abortion," and again in Trelawny's 
presence he called to his bull-dog on the stairway, " Don't 

85 Medwin, Conversations of Lord Byron, p. 58. 

88 Monkhouse, Life of Leigh Hunt, pp. 64-65. 

87 II, pp. 145-146. 88 Autobiography, II, p. 24. 

89 Correspondence, I, p. 188, July 8, 1822. Letter to his sister-in-law. 

90 Letters and Journals, VI, p. 97, July 12, 1822. 



Ill 

let any Cockneys pass this way." 91 Sometime previous to 
October his endurance must have given way completely, for 
in that month Hunt wrote that Byron was again for the 
plan. 92 In January Byron urged John Hunt to employ good 
writers for The Liberal that it might succeed. 93 March 17, 
1823, Byron, in a letter to John Hunt, said that he attributed 
the failure of The Liberal to his own contributions and that 
the magazine would stand a better chance without him. He 
desired to sever the partnership if the magazine was to be 
continued. 94 His constant vacillation in part supports the 
charge made by Hunt that Byron under protest contributed 
his worse productions in order to make a show of coopera- 
tion. 95 Insinuations from Moore and Murray had fallen on 
fertile ground and had persuaded Byron that the association 
jeopardized his reputation. Hobhouse, Byron's friend, joined 
his dissenting voice to theirs, and " rushed over the Alps " 
to add to his disapproval. 96 Hazlitt's account of the conspiracy 
of Byron's friends against The Liberal is very fiery. 97 

91 Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron, I, p. 174. 

92 Correspondence, I, p. 192. October (?), 1822. 

93 Letters and Journals, VI, p. 160. January 8, 1823. 
91 Ibid., VI, pp. 1 71-173. 

95 Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, pp. 50, 63. 

96 Ibid., p. 48. 

97 " Blackwood's Magazine overflowed, as might be expected, with ten- 
fold gall and bitterness ; the John Bull was outrageous ; and Mr. Jerdan 
black in the face at this unheard-of and disgraceful union. But who would 
have supposed that Mr. Thomas Moore and Mr. Hobhouse, those staunch 
friends and partisans of the people, should also be thrown into almost 
hysterical agonies of well-bred horror at the coalition between their noble 
and ignoble acquaintance, between the Patrician and the ' Newspaper- 
Man ' ? Mr. Moore darted backwards and forwards from Cold-Bath-Fields' 
Prison to the Examiner-Office, from Mr. Longman's to Mr. Murray's shop, 
in a state of ridiculous trepidation, to see what was to be done to pre- 
vent this degradation of the aristocracy of letters, this indecent encroach- 
ment of plebeian pretensions, this undue extension of patronage and com- 
promise of privilege. The Tories were shocked that Lord Byron should 
grace the popular side by his direct countenance and assistance — the 
Whigs were shocked that he should share his confidence and councils with 
any one who did not unite the double recommendations of birth and 
genius — but themselves !" (Hazlitt, The Plain Speaker, II, p. 437 ff.) 



112 

The first number of The Liberal appeared October 15, 
1822. There were three subsequent numbers. Byron's con- 
tributions were his brilliant and masterly satire, the Vision of 
Judgment, Heaven and Earth, A Letter to the Editor of my 
Grandmother 's Review, The Blues, and his translation of the 
first canto of Pulci's Morgante Maggiore. Murray had with- 
held the preface to the Vision of Judgment and this omission, 
combined with an unwise announcement in The Examiner of 
September 29, 1822, by John Hunt, made the reception even 
worse than it might otherwise have been. Hunt said the 
Vision of Judgment " played the devil with all of us." 98 Shel- 
ley had made ready for the forthcoming magazine his ex- 
quisite translation of Goethe's May Day Night and a prose 
narrative, A German Apologue. These appeared in the first 
number. Hunt's best contributions were two poems, Lines 
to a Spider and Mahmoud. Letters from Abroad are good in 
spots only. His two satires, The Dogs and The Book of 
Beginners, are pale reflections in meter and tone of Don Juan 
and Beppo combined. The Florentine Lovers is a good story 
spoiled. Rhyme and Reason, The Guili Tre, and the rest are 
purely hack work, with the possible exceptions of the transla- 
tion from Ariosto and the modernization of the Squire's Tale. 
Hazlitt contributed Pulpit Oratory, On the Spirit of Mon- 
archy, a pithy dissertation On the Scotch Character, and a 
delightful reminiscence of Coleridge in My First Acquaint- 
ance with Poets. Mrs. Shelley wrote A Tale of the Passions, 
Mme. D'Houdetot, and Giovanni Villani, all rather stilted and 
heavy. Charles Browne contributed Shakespear's Fools. A 
number of unidentified prose articles and poems, many of the 
latter translations from Alfieri, completed the list. 

The causes of the failure of The Liberal were very com- 
plex, but quite obvious. There was no definite political cam- 
paign mapped out, no proportion outlined for the various de- 
partments, no assignments of individual responsibility, no 
attempt to cater to the public appetite or to mollify the public 
prejudices for expediency's sake, and an utter want of har- 
mony among its supporters. Each contributor rode his own 

98 Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, p. 52. 



113 

hobby. Each vented his private spleen without regard to the 
common good. It was a vague, up-in-the-air scheme, wholly- 
lacking in coordination and common sense. Byron's fickleness 
and want of genuine interest in a small affair among many 
other greater ones; the disappointment of both Byron" and 
Hunt in not realizing the enormous profits that they had looked 
forward to — although Hunt wrote later that the "moderate 
profits " were quite enough to have encouraged perseverance 
on the part of Byron ; Hunt's ill-health and unhappy situation 
which rendered it difficult for him to write ; John Hunt's inex- 
perience as a bookseller; the general unpopularity of the edi- 
tor, the publisher, and the contributors ; and last, the pent-up 
storm of rage from the press which greeted the first number 
of The Liberal, 100 were other reasons that contributed to its 
ultimate downfall. In seeking Hunt for the editor of such a 
venture, as Gait had pointed out, 101 Byron had mistaken his 
political notoriety for solid literary reputation. 

Hunt, notwithstanding his confession 102 of an inability to 
write at his best and of his brother's inexperience, throws the 
burden of failure solely on Byron. He asserts that The Liberal 
had no enemies and, worst of all, that Byron when he foresaw 
hostility and failure, gave him and his brother the profits that 
they might carry the responsibility of an "ominous partner- 
ship " 103 — a statement ungenerously distorted by bitter memo- 
ries, for when John Hunt was prosecuted for the publication 
of the Vision of Judgment, Byron offered to stand trial in his 
stead. Neither does Hunt state that Byron's contributions 
were gratis and that the " moderate profits " enabled him and 
his brother to pay off some of their old debts. 104 Byron, 

99 Gait in his Life of Byron says : " Whether Mr. Hunt was or was not 
a fit co-partner for one of his Lordship's rank and celebrity, I do not under- 
take to judge ; but every individual was good enough for that vile prostitu- 
tion of his genius, to which in an unguarded hour, he submitted for money." 
(P. 244.) 

100 The Literary Gazette of October 19, 1822, was one of the notable 
opponents. 

101 Life of Byron, p. 239. 

102 Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, p. 52. 

103 Ibid., p. 53. 

104 Byron, Letters and Journals, VI, p. 183. 



114 

strong with the prescience of failure, likewise shifted the blame 
to other shoulders and with the aid of a strong imagination 
tried to persuade himself and his friends that the Hunts had 
projected the affair and that he had consented in an evil hour 
to engage in it ; 105 that they were the cause of the failure ; 
that his motives throughout had been philanthropic only in 
nature; 106 and that he was sacrificing himself for others. 
Such statements are inventions born of self-accusation and of 
self-defense. The worst that can be said of Byron from begin- 
ning to end of the affair is that he was not conscientious in 
his endeavors to make the journal a success; that, after it 
failed, he evaded financial responsibility by placing barriers 
of coldness and ungraciousness between Hunt and himself. 
On October 9, 1822, he wrote to Moore that he had done all 
he could for Hunt " but in the affairs of this world he him- 
self is a child"; 107 "As it is, I will not quit them (the Hunts) 
in their adversity, though it should cost me my character, 
fame, money, and the usual et cetera. . . . Had their journal 
gone on well, and I could have aided to make it better for 
them, I should then have left them ; after my safe pilotage off 
a lee shore, to make a prosperous voyage by themselves. As 
it is, I can't, or would not, if I could, leave them amidst the 
breakers. As to any community of feeling, thought, or opin- 
ions between L. H. and me, there is little or none; we meet 
rarely, hardly ever; but I think him a good-principled and 
able man. 108 . . . You would not have had me leave him in the 
street with his family, would you? And as to the other plan 
you mention, you forget how it would humiliate him — that 
his writings should be supposed to be dead weight ! Think a 
moment — he is perhaps the vainest man on earth, at least his 
own friends say so pretty loudly ; and if he were in other cir- 
cumstances I might be tempted to take him down a peg; but 
not now — it would be cruel. 109 ... A more amiable man in 

105 Ibid., VI, p. 124. 

™ a Ibid., VI, p. 174, p. 182. (Letters to Mrs. Shelley.) 

107 Ibid., VI, p. 124. 

10S Ibid., V., p. 157, December 25^ 1822 

109 Ibid., VI, pp. 167-168. 



115 

society I know not, nor (when he will allow his sense to pre- 
vail over his sectarian principles) a better writer. When he 
was writing his Rimini I was not the last to discover its beau- 
ties, long before it was published. Even then I remonstrated 
against its vulgarisms ; which are the more extraordinary, 
because the author is anything but a vulgar man." 110 During 
April, 1823, the Countess of Blessington had a conversation 
with Byron in which he said that while he regretted having 
embarked in The Liberal, yet he had a good opinion of the 
talents and principles of Hunt, despite their diametrically op- 
posed tastes. 111 On April 2, 1823, he wrote that Hunt was 
incapable or unwilling to help himself; that he could not keep 
up this " genuine philanthropy " permanently ; and that he 
would furnish Hunt with the means to return to England in 
comfort." 112 There is no proof that Byron ever made such 
an offer to Hunt. The purchase money of Hunt's journey 
home was Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries. On 
July 23, 1823, Byron went to Greece. The Hunts, provided 
by him with £30 for the trip, left Genoa about the same time 
for Florence, where they were literally stranded, in ill-health 
and without sufficient means for support, 113 until their depar- 
ture for England in September, 1825. The suffering there and 
the foul calumny at home magnified in Hunt's mind 114 the 
indignity and injustice that had been put upon him and warped 
his sense of gratitude and honor in the whole affair. He 
wrote from Florence : " The stiffness of age has come into 
my joints; my legs are sore and fevered; and I sometimes feel 
as if I were a ship rotting in a stagnant harbour." 115 Mrs. 
Shelley protested to Byron concerning his treatment of Hunt 116 

""Ibid., V, p. 588. 

111 Lady Blessington, Conversations of Lord Byron, p. 77. 

112 Letters and Journals, VI, pp. 182-183, April 2, 1823. 

113 Hunt's only means of support were the income from his contributions 
to Colburn's New Monthly Magazine, from the Wishing Cap Papers in The 
Examiner, and an annuity of £100. {Correspondence, I, p. 227.) 

114 Correspondence, I, p. 233-234. 

115 Correspondence, I, p. 228. See Hazlitt's account of Hunt in Italy 
given in a letter from Haydon to Miss Mitford. (Haydon, Life, Letters 
and Table Talk, pp. 223-225.) 

110 Moore, Memoirs, IV, p. 220; V. p. 182. 



116 

but she received no further satisfaction than the statement 
that he had engaged in the journal for good-will and respect 
for Hunt solely. 117 

The publisher Colburn in 1825 made Hunt an advance of 
money for the return journey, to be repaid by a volume of 
selections from his own writings preceded by a biographical 
sketch. 118 An irresistible longing for England and a crisis 
in the disagreement with John Hunt regarding the proprietary 
rights of The Examiner and the publication of the Wishing 
Cap Papers in that paper, made Hunt seize at the first oppor- 
tunity by which he might return home. From Paris, on his 
way to England, he wrote: "If I delayed I might be pinned 
forever to a distance, like a fluttering bird to a wall, and so 
die in helpless yearning. I have been mistaken. During my 
strength my weakness perhaps, was only apparent ; now that I 
am weaker, indignation has given a fillip to my strength." 119 
From his severance with The Examiner and the publication of 
Bacchus in Tuscany in 1825, Hunt was idle until 1828. Then, 
pressed by his obligation to Colburn and stung by the mis- 
representations of the press regarding his relations with Byron 
in Italy, he scored even, as he thought, by producing Lord 
Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, the blunder of his life 
and the one blot upon his honor. In addition to the part deal- 
ing with Byron, it contained autobiographical reminiscences and 
memoirs of Shelley, Keats, Moore, Lamb and others. It went 
rapidly through three editions. The body of the work is a 
discussion of the defects of Byron's character and a detailed 
analysis of his actions. In brief, he is charged with insincerity 
in the cause of liberty; an impatience of any despotism save 
his own; a vain pride of rank, although his friends were of 
humble origin ; a " libelling all around " of friends ; an ignor- 
ance of real love, consanguineous or sexual; coarseness in 
speaking of women or to them; 120 a voluptuous indolence; 
weak impulses; a habit of miscellaneous confidences and exag- 

ur Letters and Journals, VI, p. 174, 1823. 

11S Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, preface, p. 3. 

U3 Clarke, Recollection of Writers, p. 230. 

"" But compare Hunt's own remarks on p. 40. 



117 

geration; untruthfulness; susceptibility to influence; avarice 
even in his patriotism and debauchery ; a willingness to receive 
petty obligations; jealousy of the great and small; no powers 
of conversation and a want of self-possession ; bad temper and 
self-will; an inordinate desire for flattery; egotism and love 
of notoriety. More petty accusations are excess in his eating 
and drinking, though Hunt complains that Byron would not 
" drink like a lord " ; his fondness for communicating unpleasant 
tidings ; his inclination to the mock heroic ; his effeminacy and 
old-womanish superstition; his easily-aroused suspicions; his 
imitativeness in writing poetry; his slight knowledge of lan- 
guages; his physical cowardice. The virtues of this monster, 
small in number and grudgingly allowed, were admitted to be 
good horsemanship, good looks, a delicate hand, amusing 
powers of mimicry, pleasantry in his cups, masterly swimming. 
Unfortunately these statements were usually damned with a 
"but" or "yet." 

While it is now generally believed that many of the accusa- 
tions made by Hunt were true, 121 inasmuch as they are con- 

121 The biographers of the two men have taken various attitudes toward 
the value of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries. Gait says 
that the pains Hunt took to elaborate faults of Byron make one think 
Hunt was treated according to his deserts, and that the troubles he labored 
under may have caused him to misapprehend Byron's jocularity for 
sarcasm, and caprice for insolence. (Life of Byron, p. 260.) Garnett 
considers the book a " corrective of merely idealized estimates of Lord 
Byron," and its " reception more unfavorable than its deserts." (Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica, " Byron," Ninth Edition.) Nichol thinks that while the 
book was prompted by uncharitableness and egotism, Byron's faults were 
only slightly magnified: that the poetic insight, the cosmopolitan sympathy 
and courage of Hunt have given a view that nothing elese could have done. 
(Life of Byron, p. 165.) R. B. Johnson thinks that it was a correct esti- 
mate written in self-justification. Undoubtedly it should not have come 
from Hunt, yet if it had not been written Hunt would not have been 
defended nor Byron so well known. He says there is " no reason to 
regret any part of the affair but the heated and persistent abuse with 
which one of the most sensitive and humane of men has been loaded on 
account of it." (Leigh Hunt, p. 50.) Noble says that " Byron's friends 
met unpleasant truths by still more unpleasant falsehoods." (The Sonnet 
in England, p. 115.) Alexander Ireland, says the book was the great 
blunder of Hunt's life, " ought not to have been written, far less pub- 
lished." (Dictionary of National Biography.) 



118 

firmed in large part by contemporary evidence, and as truthful- 
ness was one of Hunt's dominant traits, yet, on the other hand, 
it is quite necessary to make large allowance for the point of 
view and the color given by prejudice and bitterness of spirit. 
That Hunt told only the 'truth does not justify the injury in the 
slightest, for he had slept under Byron's roof and eaten of his 
bread. The obligations conferred were not exactly those of 
benefactor to suppliant ; they were perhaps no more than 
Hunt's due in the light of the responsibility voluntarily as- 
sumed by Byron ; yet they could not be destroyed or forgotten 
because of a refusal to acknowledge them. Worse still, Hunt's 
motives proceeded from impecuniosity and revenge. Such 
petty gossip of private affairs was worthy of a smaller and 
meaner soul. That Hunt did not have the sanction of his own 
judgment and conscience is clearly seen in the preface to the 
first edition where he confesses an unwilling hand and gives 
as a reason for the change of scheme a too long holiday taken 
after the advance of money from Colburn. He says that the 
book would never have been written at all, or consigned to the 
flames when finished, if he could have repaid the money. 122 
His one poor defense is that " Byron talked freely of me and 
mine," that the public had talked, and that Byron knew how he 
felt. 123 

The book had a very large circulation. But Hunt, who had 
hoped to defend himself in this manner from the calumnies 
afloat since the failure of The Liberal, brought down a storm 
of abuse from the press that resulted in his degradation and 
Byron's canonization. Moore's welcome was a poem, The 
Living Dog and the Dead Lion. 124 Hunt's friends replied with 
The Giant and the Dwarf. 125 In his life of Byron published 
some years later, Moore speaks reservedly of the book, merely 
saying it had sunk into deserved oblivion. 126 

122 Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, p. 89. 

123 Ibid., pp. 20-21. 

124 Byron, Letters and Journals, II, p. 208. 
m Ibid., II, p. 461. 

128 Thornton Hunt, in his edition of his father's Correspondence, 1862, 
in this connection defended Byron, and credited him with " a strong sym- 
pathy with all that was beautiful and generous, with a desire to do right, 



119 

Hunt's public apology and reparation, in so far as such lay 
in his power, were first made in 1847 m ^ Saunter Through the 
West End: " No. 140 (formerly No. 13 of what was Piccadilly 
Terrace) was the last house which Byron inhabited in Eng- 
land. Nobody needs to be told what a great wit and fine poet 
he was : but everybody does not know that he was by nature a 
genial and generous man spoiled by the most untoward cir- 
cumstances in early life. He vexed his enemies, and some- 
times his friends ; but his very advantages have been hard upon 
him, and subjected him to all sorts of temptations. May peace 
rest upon his infirmities, and his fame brighten as it ad- 
vances." 127 In 1848, he wrote in praise of the Ave Maria 
stanza in Don Juan. 128 And finally and completely in his 
Autobiography he apologized for the heat and venom of Lord 
Byron and Some of His Contemporaries: 

" I wrote nothing which I did not feel to be true, or think so. But I 
can say with Alamanni, that I was then a young man, and that I am 
now advanced in years. I can say, that I was agitated by grief and anger, 
and that I am now free from anger. I can say, that I was far more alive 
to other people's defects than to my own, and that I am now sufficiently 
sensible of my own to show to others the charity which I need myself. 
I can say, moreover, that apart from a little allowance for provocation, I 
do not think it right to exhibit what is amiss, or may be thought amiss, 
in the character of a fellow-creature, out of any feeling but unmistakable 
sorrow, or the wish to lessen evils which society itself may have caused. 

" Lord Byron, with respect to the points on which he erred and suffered 
(for on all others, a man like himself, poet and wit, could not but give 
and receive pleasure), was the victim of a bad bringing up, of a series of 
false positions in society, of evils arising from the mistakes of society 
itself, of a personal disadvantage (which his feelings exaggerated), nay, 
of his very advantages of person, and of a face so handsome as to render 
with strong tendencies of natural affection," and declared that his fickleness 
had been " nurtured by an excessively bad training." In exoneration of 
Hunt he said that if " disappointment and the fervour of a new literary 
work — which often draws the pen beyond its original intention — led Leigh 
Hunt into a book that was too severe, perhaps too one-sided in its views, 
he himself afterwards corrected the one-sidedness, and recalled to mind 
the earlier and undoubtedly the more correct impression he had had of 
Lord Byron." I, 202-203. 

127 P. 14. For an apology made six years earlier see a letter from Hunt 
to Thomas Moore. (Correspondence, II, p. 38.) 
12S Hunt, A Jar of Honey from Mt. Hybia, p. 155. 



120 

him an object of admiration. Even the lameness, of which he had such 
a resentment, only softened the admiration with tenderness. 

" But he did not begin life under good influences. He had a mother, 
herself, in all probability, the victim of bad training, who would fling the 
dishes from table at his head, and tell him he would be a scoundrel 
like his father. His father, who was cousin to the previous lord, had 
been what is called a man upon town, and was neither rich nor very 
respectable. The young lord, whose means had not yet recovered them- 
selves, went to school, noble but poor, expecting to be in the ascendant 
with his title, yet kept down by the inconsistency of his condition. He 
left school to put on the cap with the gold tuft, which is worshipped at 
college : — he left college to fall into some of the worst hands on the 
town : — his first productions were contemptuously criticised, and his genius 
was thus provoked into satire : — his next were overpraised, which in- 
creased his self-love : — he married when his temper had been soured by 
difficulties, and his will and pleasure pampered by the sex : — and he went 
companionless into a foreign country, where all this perplexity could repose 
without being taught better, and where the sense of a lost popularity could 
be drowned in license. 

" I am sorry I ever wrote a syllable respecting Lord Byron which might 
have been spared. I have still to relate my connection with him, but it 
will be related in a different manner. Pride, it is said, will have a fall ; 
and I must own, that on this subject I have experienced the truth of the 
saying. I had prided myself — I should pride myself now if I had not 
been thus rebuked — on not being one of those who talk against others. 
I went counter to this feeling in a book ; and to crown the absurdity of 
the contradiction, I am foolish enough to suppose that the very fact of my 
so doing would show that I had done it in no other instance ! that having 
been thus public in the error, credit would be given me for never having 
been privately so ! Such are the delusions inflicted on us by self-love. 
When the consequence was represented to me as characterized by my 
enemies, I felt, enemies though they were, as if I blushed from head to foot. 
It is true I had been goaded to the task by misrepresentation : — I had 
resisted every other species of temptation to do it : — and, after all, I said 
more in his excuse, and less to his disadvantage, than many of those who 
reproved me. But enough. I owed the acknowledgment to him and to 
myself ; and I shall proceed on my course with a sigh for both, and I 
trust in the good will of the sincere." "* 

129 II, pp. 90-93. 



CHAPTER V 

Characteristics of the " Cockney School " — Reasons for Tory enmity — 
Establishment of Blackwood's Magazine and the Quarterly Review — Their 
methods of attack — Other targets — Authorship of anonymous articles — Mem- 
bers of the Cockney group — Byron — Hunt — Keats — Shelley — Hazlitt. 

The word " Cockney " says Bulwer-Lytton, signifies the 
" archetype of the Londoner east of Temple Bar, and is as 
grotesquely identified with the Bells of Bow as Quasimodo 
with those of Notre Dame." 1 The epithet remains doubtful in 
origin but is proverbially significant of odium and of ridicule. 
R. H. Home asserts that, in its first application, it meant 
merely " pastoral, minus nature." 2 The word did not long 
carry so harmless a connotation. It was first applied to Hunt 
by the Tory journals in 1817 and, in the phrase " Cockney 
School," was gradually extended until it included most of his 
associates. The group of men thus arbitrarily banded together 
did not form a school or cult, and themselves resented such a 
classification. They differed widely in their fundamental 
principles of life and art. They were not all of one vocation. 
On the other hand they had certain superficial points in com- 
mon which made them collectively vulnerable to the dart of the 
enemy. They were Londoners 3 by birth or by adoption ; with 
the exception of Shelley they may all be said to have belonged 

1 Charles Lamb and Some of His Companions in the Quarterly Review 
of January, 1867. 

2 A New Spirit of the Age, p. 182. 

3 Near the close of his life Hunt wrote: "The jests about London and the 
Cockneys did not affect me in the least, as far as my faith was con- 
cerned. They might as well have said that Hampstead was not beautiful, 
or Richmond lovely ; or that Chaucer and Milton were Cockneys when 
they went out of London to lie on the grass and look at the daisies. The 
Cockney School is the most illustrious in England ; for, to say nothing of 
Pope and Gray, who were both veritable Cockneys, ' born within the sound 
of Bow Bell,' Milton was so too ; and Chaucer and Spenser were both 
natives of the city. Of the four greatest English poets, Shakespeare only 
was not a Londoner." {Autobiography, II, p. 197.) 

121 



122 

to the middle class ; the most Cockneyfied of them had certain 
vulgar mannerisms ; they egotistically paraded their personal 
affairs in public ; they praised each other somewhat fulsomely 
in dedications and elsewhere, though not always to the full 
satisfaction of everybody concerned; they presented each other 
with wreaths of bay, laurel, and roses, and with locks of hair; 
they agreed in liking Thomas Moore and in disliking Southey ; 
they moved with complacency within a limited circle to the 
exclusion of a large city ; in general they were liberal in politics 
and in religion ; they were in revolt against French criticism ; 
they chose Elizabethan or Italian models, and, as a rule, they 
conceitedly ignored or contemned contemporary writers. 

The gatherings of the coterie have been nowhere better 
described than by Cowden Clarke: 

" Evenings of Mozartian operatic and chamber music at Vincent Novello's 
own house, where Leigh Hunt, Shelley, Keats and the Lambs were invited 
guests ; the brilliant supper parties at the alternate dwellings of the No- 
vellos, the Hunts and the Lambs, who had mutually agreed that bread and 
cheese, with celery, and Elia's immortalized ' Lutheran beer ' were to be 
the sole cates provided ; the meetings at the theatres, when Munden, Dow- 
ton, Liston, Bannister, Elliston and Fanny Kelly were on the stage ; the 
picnic repasts enjoyed together by appointment in the fields that lay 
spread in green breadth and luxuriance between the west end of Oxford 
Street and the western slope of Hampstead Hill — are things never to be 
forgotten." * 

Miss Mitford relates a ludicrous incident of one of these 
meetings : 

" Leigh Hunt (not the notorious Mr. Henry Hunt, but the fop, poet and 
politician of the ' Examiner ') is a great keeper of birthdays. He was 
celebrating that of Haydn, the great composer — giving a dinner, crown- 
ing his bust with laurels, berhyming the poor dear German, and conduct- 
ing an apotheosis in full form. Somebody told Mr. Haydon they were 
celebrating his birthday. So off he trotted to Hampstead, and bolted into 
the company — made a very fine animated speech — thanked him most sin- 
cerely for what they had done him and the arts in his person." 5 

4 Recollections of Writers, p. 19. Other accounts of these suppers are 
to be found in Hazlitt's On the Conversations of Authors; in the works 
dealing with Charles Lamb; and in the Comhill Magazine, November, 1900. 

5 The Life of Mary Russell Mitford. Edited by A. J. K. L'Estrange, New 
York, 1870, I, p. 370, November 12, 1819. 



123 

At one time the set became violently vegetarian. The enthu- 
siasm came to a sudden end, as narrated by Joseph Severn : 

" Leigh Hunt most eloquently discussed the charms and advantages of 
these vegetable banquets, depicting in glowing words the cauliflowers swim- 
ming in melted butter, and the peas and beans never profaned with animal 
gravy. In the midst of his rhapsody he was interrupted by the venerable 
Wordsworth, who begged permission to ask a question. ' If,' he said, ' by 
chance of good luck they ever met with a caterpillar, they thanked their 
stars for the delicious morsel of animal food.' This absurdity all came 
to an end by an ugly discovery. Haydon, whose ruddy face had kept the 
other enthusiasts from sinking under their scanty diet — for they clung 
fondly to the hope that they would become like him, although they in- 
creased daily in pallor and leanness — this Haydon was discovered one day 
coming out of a chop-house. He was promptly taxed with treachery, when 
he honestly confessed that every day after the vegetable repast he ate a 
good beef-steak. This fact plunged the others in despair, and Leigh Hunt 
assured me that on vegetable diet his constitution had received a blow 
from which he had never recovered. With Shelley it was different, for he 
was by nature formed to regard animal food repulsively." 6 

The causes of the enmity of the press were political rather 
than literary or personal and have already been sufficiently 
dwelt upon in the preceding chapters. The strong rivalry be- 
tween Edinburgh and London as publishing strongholds inten- 
sified the strife. Hunt in particular had centered attention 
upon himself by his persistent and violent attacks on Giffbrd 
and Southey for several years previous to 1817. Besides The 
Examiner's persistent allusions to these two unregenerates, a 
savage diatribe had appeared in the Feast of the Poets, which 
alluded to Giff ord's humble origin and mediocre ability, charged 
him with being a government tool, and continued : " But a vile, 
peevish temper, the more inexcusable in its indulgence, because 
he appears to have had early warning of its effects, breaks out 
in every page of his criticism, and only renders his affected 
grinning the more obnoxious ... I pass over the nauseous 
epistle to Peter Pindar, and even notes to his Baviad and 
Mceviad, where though less vulgar in his language, he has a 
great deal of the pert cant and snip-snap which he deprecates." 7 
During 1817, The Examiner had concerned itself particularly 

6 Sharp, The Life and Letters of Joseph Severn, p. 33. 
T Notes, pp. 57-61. 



124 

with Southey. He had been called an apostate, a hypocrite, 
and almost every other name in Hunt's abusive vocabulary. 
Sir Walter Scott had not been spared. His politics were said 
to be easily estimated by the " simple fact, that of all the advo- 
cates of Charles the Second, he is the least scrupulous in men- 
tioning his crimes, because he is the least abashed ; " his com- 
mand of prose was declared equal to nothing beyond " a plain 
statement or a brief piece of criticism ; " his poetry " a little 
thinking conveyed in a great many words." 8 Hunt thus se- 
cured to himself, through offensive and aggressive abuse, the 
hostility of the Tories both in England and in Scotland. His 
weaknesses and affectations made him a conspicuous and assail- 
able target for the inevitable return fire. 9 

The establishment by the Tories of the Quarterly Review 
in 1809 and of Blackwood's Magazine in 1817 was with the 
view of opposing and, if possible, of suppressing the Edinburgh 
Reviezv and The Examiner. The brunt of the hostility fell 
upon the latter, for Hunt, by reason of his extreme social and 
religious policy, could not always rally the Edinburgh Review 
to his support. With the founding of the London Magazine 
in 1820 he had a new ally in its editor, John Scott, but the war 
had then already raged for three years, and Scott fell a victim 
to it in two years' time. 10 By a process of elimination Scott 

* Ibid., pp. 62-68. 

9 Other controversies, such as the one with Antoine Dubost, show Hunt's 
aggressiveness. Dubost had sold a painting of Damocles to his patron, a 
Mr. Hope. The latter became convinced that the author was an imposter 
and tore the signature from the picture. In retaliation Dubost painted and 
exhibited Beauty and the Beast, a caricature of the whole incident. The 
Examiner accused him of forgery and rank ingratitude. Hunt does not 
seem to have had any particular proof or knowledge on the subject, yet 
he employed scathing denunciation in writing of it. Dubost replied and 
asserted that Hunt was Hope's hireling, and that he had " ransacked the 
whole calendar of scurrility, and hunted for nick-names through all the 
common places of blackguardism." (Dubost, An Appeal to the Public 
against the Calumnies of the Examiner, London, n. d., p. 9.) 

10 He undertook a vindication of the Cockney School in a series of four 
articles, in which he pointed out the " mean insincerity," the " vulgar 
slander," the " mouthing cant," the " shabby spite," the falsehoods and the 
recantations of Blackwood's. The description of the conditions, under 



125 

fixed the identity of " Z " — such was the only signature of the 
articles on the Cockney School in Blackwood's — upon Lock- 
hart. He also asserted that Lockhart was the editor of the 
magazine. Lockhart demanded an apology. His friend Christie 
took up the quarrel. In the duel which followed Scott was 
fatally wounded. His death followed Keats's within four 
days. 

The method of attack with the Quarterly and with Black- 
wood's was much the same. They differed chiefly in the style 
of approach. The former may be compared to heavy artillery, 
slow, cumbrous and crushing. The reviews indeed often verge 
on dullness and stupidity. Neither Gifford nor Southey seemed 
to have been blessed with the saving grace of humor in dealing 
with the Cockney School. Blackzvood's, on the other hand, 
had too much, for whenever one of the so-called Cockneys was 
mentioned, its contributors wallowed in the mire of coarse 
buffoonery and cruel satire, disgusting scandal and vulgar 
parody. The only counter-irritant to such a dose is the clever 
joking and keen humor; but even when this is clean, which is 
rare, the whole is rendered unpalatable by the thought of its 
cruelty and of its frequent falsity. Furthermore, Blackwood's 
was more merciless in its persecution than the Quarterly in 
that it was untiring. It was perpetually discharging a fresh 
fusilade. Both magazines disguised their real motives under 
a cloak of religious zeal and monarchical loyalty. 

While Hunt did much to bring the hornet's nest about his 
ears, he was not wholly deserving of the amount, and not at all 
of the kind, ,of stinging calumny that he had to endure. 
Neither were the members of the Cockney School the only 
ones who provoked such antagonism from the same magazine. 
Other famous libels of Blackwood's that should be mentioned 
to show the disposition of its controllers were the Chaldee 

which Scott pictured the articles of his enemies to have been written, 
smacks of the mocking humor of Blackwood's itself: "a redolency of 
Leith-ale, and tobacco smoke, which floats about all the pleasantry in 
question, — giving one the idea of its facetious articles having been written 
on the slopped table of a tavern parlour in the back-wynd, after the 
convives had retired, and left the author to solitude, pipe-ashes, and the 
dregs of black-strap." 



126 

Manuscript; the Madonna of Dresden and other effusions of 
the "Baron von Lauerwinckel" ; the Diary and Horce Sinicce 
of Ensign O'Doherty; and the Diary of William Wastle, Black- 
wood and Dr. Morris. Letter to Sir Walter Scott, Bart., on the 
Moral and other Characteristics of the Ebony and Shandrydan 
School, 11 cites a full list of Blackzuood's victims. These, besides 
those of the Cockney School, were said to be Jeffrey, Professor 
Playfair, Professor Dugald Stewart, Professor Leslie, James 
Macintosh, Lord Brougham, Moore, Professor David Ricardo, 
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Pringle, Dalzell, Cleghorn, Graham, 
Sharpe, Jameson, and Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd. The char- 
acters in Nodes Ambrosiance, Ticklers, Scorpions and Shep- 
herds, were said by the pamphleteer to respectively tickle, sting 
and stultify, and to make a business " of insulting worth, offend- 
ing delicacy, caluminating genius, and outraging the decencies 
and violating all the sanctities of life." Their weapons were 
" loathsome billingsgate and brutality," and " sublime bathos." 
An interesting statement, not elsewhere found, is made by the 
anonymous author of the pamphlet that the proprietor of the 
Black Bull Inn imputed the death of his wife to the first volume 
of Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk, a series similar to the Nodes 
Ambrosiance. Sir Walter Scott is told that he cannot remain 
innocent if he remains indifferent to the machinations of the 
" Ebony and Shandrydan School " — as the writer pleases to 
call the Blackwood's group. Another interesting pamphlet of 
like nature is The Scorpion Critic Unmasked; or Animadver- 
sions on a Pretended Review of " Fleurs, a Poem, in Four 
Books," which appeared in Blackzuood's Edinburgh Magazine 
for June, 1821, in a Letter to a Friend. 1 - Blackwood's had 
called Nathaniel John Hollingsworth, the author of the poem, 
and others of his type, the " Leg of Mutton School." 13 Nothing 

11 Published in Edinburgh in 1820 and signed by "An American Scotch- 
man." u Published in Newcastle in 1821. 

13 The School was thus described in Blackwood's : " The chief constella- 
tions, in this poetical firmament, consist of led captains, and clerical hangers- 
on, whose pleasure, and whose business, it is, to celebrate in tuneful verse, 
the virtues of some angelic patron, who keeps a good table, and has in- 
terest with the archbishop, or the India House. Verily they have their 
reward." In other words this group was composed of diners-out or para- 
sites, and sycophants for livings and military appointments. 



127 

in fact seems to have given this magazine so much malicious 
delight as to create schools, perhaps in a spirit of rivalry with 
the " Lake School " of the Edinburgh Review. In the pre- 
ceding April the " Manchester School " had been presented by 
Blackwood's to the public. Hollingsworth in turn created the 
" Scorpion School " in order to deride Blacktuood's. Other 
pamphlets of the same kind were Rebellion again Gulliver; or 
R-D-C-L-SM in Lilliput. A Poetical Fragment from a Lilli- 
putian Manuscript, an anonymous publication which appeared 
in Edinburgh in 1820; Aspersions answered: an explanatory 
Statement, advanced to the Public at Large, and to Every 
Reader of The Quarterly Review in Particular ; 14 and Another 
Article for the Quarterly Review; 15 both by William Hone 
in reply to the charge of irreligion made by the Quarterly 
against him. 

William Blackwood, John Wilson or " Christopher North," 
Lockhart, and perhaps Maginn, share the blame severally of 
Blackzvood's; while in the case of the Quarterly, to Gifford and 
Southey, already mentioned, must be added Sir Walter Scott 
and Croker. The two last certainly countenanced the actions 
of the others, even if they took no more active part. There 
seems to be no way of determining the individual authorship 
of the various articles. It was a secret jealously guarded at the 
time and it is unlikely that any further disclosures will come 
to light. The victims themselves hazarded as many guesses as 
more recent critics with no greater degree of certainty. Leigh 
Hunt thought that the articles were written by Sir Walter 
Scott ; 16 Hazlitt said, " To pay those fellows in their own coin, 
the way would be to begin with Walter Scott and have at his 
clump foot;" 17 Charles Dilke thought that the articles were 
written by Lockhart with the encouragement of Scott; 18 Hay- 
don thought that " Z " was Terry the actor, an intimate of 
the Blackwood party, who had been exasperated because Hunt 

14 Published in London, 1824. 

15 Published in London also in 1824. 

16 Keats, Works, IV, p. 66. 

17 C. C. Clarke, Recollections of Writers, p. 147. 

18 Keats, Works, IV, p. 66. 



128 

had failed to notice him in The Examiner ;™ Shelley fancied 
that the articles in the Quarterly were by Southey, and, on his 
denial, attributed them to Henry Hart Milman. 20 Mrs. Oli- 
phant in her two ponderous volumes, William Blackwood and 
His Sons, practically asserts that " Z " was Lockhart. 21 If 
the extent of her research is to be the gauge of its value, her 
opinion is a very valuable one. Mr. Colvin advances the theory 
that " Z " was Wilson or Lockhart, possibly revised by William 
Blackwood. 22 Mr. Courthope thinks that Croker was the 
author of the articles on Endymion in the Quarterly. 23 Mr. 
Her ford thinks that the whole campaign against the Cockney 
School was " largely worked out " by Lockhart. 24 

Hunt, Shelley, Hazlitt and Keats were the chief targets in 
the Cockney School. The attacks on each of these are of such 
length as to require separate discussion and will be returned to 
later. Those who attained lesser notoriety were Charles Lamb, 
Haydon, Barry Cornwall, John Hamilton Reynolds, Cornelius 
Webb, Charles Wells, Charles Dilke, Charles Lloyd, P. G. Pat- 
more and John Ketch (Abraham Franklin). Those who 
moved within the same circle and who may by attraction be 
considered Cockneys are Charles Cowden Clarke and his wife, 
Vincent Novello, Charles Armitage Brown, the Olliers, Horace 
and James Smith, Douglas Jerrold, Joseph Severn, Laman 
Blanchard, Thomas Noon Talfourd, Thomas Love Peacock, 
and perhaps Thomas Hood. 

Charles Lamb was first attacked in 1820. He had written 
essays somewhat in the manner of Hunt and he was a con- 
tributor to the London Magazine, which had blundered by 
censuring Castlereagh, Canning, and Wilber force. The much- 
despised Hazlitt was another of its force. Accordingly, 
" Elia " was pronounced a " Cockney Scribbler," Christ's 
Hospital an essay full of offensive and reprehensible personali- 

19 Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, p. 349. 

29 Dowden, Life of Shelley, II, p. 302. 

21 1, p. 133. "Keats, p. 120. 

23 Life in Poetry: Law in Taste, pp. 21-23. 

24 Age of Wordsworth, p. 58. 



129 

ties, 25 and All Fool's Day " mere inanity and very Cockney- 
ism." 26 In April, 1822, Blackwood's returned to the attack 
but with more than usual good nature. In Nodes Ambrosiance 
of that month Tickler is made to say: 

" Elia in his happiest moods delights me ; he is a fine soul ; but when he 
is dull, his dullness sets human stupidity at defiance. He is like a well- 
bred, ill-trained pointer. He has a fine nose, but he can't or won't range. 
He always keeps close to your foot, and then he points larks or tit-mice. 
You see him snuffing and snoking and brandishing his tail with the most 
impassioned enthusiasm, and then drawn round into a semi-circle he stands 
beautifully — dead set. You expect a burst of partridges, or a towering 
cock-pheasant, when lo, and behold, away flits a lark, or you discover a 
mouse's nest, or there is absolutely nothing at all. Perhaps a shrew has 
been there the day before. Yet if Elia were mine, I would not part with 
him, for all his faults." 

A few years later Lamb became one of Blackzuood's con- 
tributors. Two attacks on Lamb proceeded from the Quar- 
terly. The Confessions of a Drunkard, the writer says, 
" affords a fearful picture of the consequences of intemperance 
which we have reason to know is a true tale." 27 In his 
Progess of Infidelity, Southey asserted that Elia's volume 
of essays wanted " only sounder religious feeling, to be as de- 
lightful as it is original." 28 Lamb's wrath had been slowly 
gathering under the strain of repeated attacks on Hunt, Hazlitt 
and himself. It culminated with Southey 's article. In the 
London Magazine of October, 1823, he repudiated at con- 
siderable length the compliments thrust upon him at the 
expense of his friends, and denied the arraignment of drunken- 
ness and heterodoxy. Matters were then smoothed over be- 
tween him and Southey through an explanation which • his 
unfailing good nature could not resist. 

Haydon was nick-named the " Raphael of the Cockneys." 29 
Until the exhibition of Christ's Entry into Jerusalem in Edin- 
burgh in 1820, he underwent the same kind of persecution as 
his friends. His " greasy hair " was about as notorious as 
Hazlett's " pimpled face." But the picture converted Black- 

25 Blackwood's, November, 1820. ^Quarterly, April, 1822. 

26 Ibid., May, 1821. 2S Ibid., January, 1823. 

29 Blackwood's, April, 1819. 



130 

wood's crew. They apologized and confessed that their mis- 
apprehensions had been due to the absurd style of laudation in 
The Examiner. Henceforward they acknowledged him to be 
" a high Tory and an aristocrat, and a sound Christian." 30 

Bryan Waller Procter, or Barry Cornwall, was satirized in 
Blackwood's for his so-called effeminacy. In October, 1823, 
the following facetious passage occurs : " the merry thought of 
a chick — three tea-spoons fulls of peas, the eighth part of a 
French roll, a sprig of cauliflower, and an almost imperceptible 
dew of parsley " would dine the author of The Deluge. The 
article on Shelley's Posthumous Poems in the Edinburgh of 
July, 1824, was attributed to Procter by Blackwood's and 
assailed in a most disgusting manner. The article was by 
Hazlitt. 

John Hamilton Reynolds was a friend of Keats, one of 
the Young Poets reviewed by Hunt in The Examiner, and a 
contributor to the London Magazine. His two poems, Eden 
of the Imagination and Fairies, showed Hunt's influence. In 
the former he had even dared to praise Hunt in the notes. 

Cornelius Webb was the author of numerous poems which 
exhibit in a marked degree the Huntian peculiarities of diction 
pointed out in the first chapter. He is moreover responsible 
for the unfortunate lines so often quoted in derision by Black- 
wood's : 

" Keats 
The Muses' son of promise ! and what feats 
He yet may do." 

His sonnets in the Literary Pocket Book were thus reviewed 
in- Blackwood's of December, 1821 : "Now, Cornelius Webbe 
is a Jaw-breaker. Let any man who desires to have his ivory 
dislodged, read the above sonnet to March. Or shall we call 
Cornelius, the grinder? After reading aloud these fourteen 
lines, we called in our Odontist, and he found that every tooth 
in our head was loosened, and a slight fracture in the jaw. 
' My dearest Christopher', said the Odontist, in his wonted 
classical spirit, ' beware the Ides of March.' So saying, he 
bounced up in our faces and disappeared." 

80 Life, Letters and Table Talk of Benjamin Robert Haydon, p. 69. 



131 

Charles Wells was a friend of Hazlitt and of Keats. In 
true Cockney fashion he sent the latter a sonnet and some 
roses and thus began the acquaintance. Dilke was a friend of 
Keats, a radical, and an independent critic in the manner 
of Hunt. Charles Lloyd was Lamb's friend, one of the con- 
tributors to the Literary Pocket Book of 1820, and a poet of 
sentimental and descriptive propensities. P. G. Patmore was 
" Count Tims, the Cockney." 31 Although he was a corre- 
spondent of Blackwood's, his son has remarked that he was not 
persona grata, but was employed to secure news from London ; 
and permitted to write only when he did not defend his friends 
too much. 32 "John Ketch" (Abraham Franklin) is men- 
tioned by Lord Byron as one of the " Cockney Scribblers." 33 
Thomas Hood, as brother-in-law of Reynolds, as assistant 
editor of the London Magazine, and as an imitator in a small 
degree in his early work of Lamb and of Hunt may be enu- 
merated among the Cockneys, although he is not usually 
included. Laman Blanchard was the friend of Procter, Lamb 
and Hunt. He imitated Procter's Dramatic Sketches and 
Lamb's Essays. Talfourd was a member of the circle and the 
friend and biographer of Lamb. He defended Edward 
Moxon when he was prosecuted for publishing Queen Mob. 
Peacock was the friend of Shelley. The Oilier brothers, pub- 
lishers, introduced Keats, Shelley, Hunt, Lamb and Procter 
to the public. 34 

Although Byron was frequently at war with Blackwood's 
and the Quarterly, and although he was closely associated with 
Shelley and Hunt, he was never stigmatized as a member of 
the Cockney School. Yet through his alliance with them he 
came in for some opprobrium that he would otherwise have 
escaped. Blackzuood's strove through ridicule to prevent any 
growth of familiarity with Hunt or his fraternity. Its attitude 
towards the dedication to Byron of the Story of Rimini has 
already been mentioned. Hunt's statement already quoted on 

31 Blackwood's, May, 1823, pp. 558-566. 

82 Memoirs and Correspondence of Coventry Patmore, I, p. 23. 

83 Letters and Journals, V, p. 588. 

84 St. James Magazine, XXXV, p. 387 ff. 



132 

p. 95 that " for the drama, whatever good passages such a 
writer will always put forth, we hold that he (Byron) has no 
more qualification than we have " was a choice morsel for the 
Scotch birds of prey, enjoyed to the fullest extent in a review 
of Lyndsay's Dramas of the Ancient World: 

" Prigs will be preaching — and nothing but conceit cometh out of Cockaigne. 
What an emasculated band of dramatists have deployed upon our boards. 
A pale-faced, sallow set, like the misses of some Cockney boarding-school, 
taking a constitutional walk, to get rid of their habits of eating lime out 
of the wall. . . . But it was reserved to the spirit of atheism of an age, 
to talk of a Cockney writing a tragedy. When the mind ceases to believe 
in a Providence, it can believe in anything else ; but the pious soul feels 
that while to dream, even in sleep, that a Cockney had written a successful 
tragedy, would be repugnant to reason ; certainly a more successful tragedy 
could not be imagined, from the utter destruction of Cockaigne and all 
its inhabitants. An earthquake or a shower of lava would be too com- 
plimentary to the Cockneys ; but what do you think of a shower of soot 
from a multitude of foul chimneys, and the smell of gas from exploded pipes. 
Something might be made of the idea. . . . The truth is, that these mon- 
grel and doggerel drivellers have an instinctive abhorrence of a true poet ; 
and they all ran out like so many curs baying at the feet of the Pegasus 
on which Byron rode . . . and .the eulogists of homely, and fireside, and 
little back-parlour incest, what could they imagine of the unseduceable 
spirit of the spotless Angiolina ? . . . When Elliston, ignorant of what one 
gentleman owes to another, or driven by stupidity to forget it, brought 
the Doge on the stage, how crowed the Bantam Cocks of Cockaigne to 
see it damned ! . . . But Manfred and the Doge are not dead ; while all 
that small fry have disappeared in the mud, and are dried up like so many 
tadpoles in a ditch, under the summer drowth. ' Lord Byron,' quoth Mr. 
Leigh Hunt, 'has about as much dramatic genius as ourselves!' He might 
as well have said, ' Lucretia had about as much chastity as my own heroine 
in Rimini ; ' or, ' Sir Phillip Sidney was about as much of the gentleman 
as myself ! ' " ^ 

Byron's attitude toward the Cockney School was expressed 
in a letter written to John Murray during the Bowles con- 
troversy : 

" With the rest of his (Hunt's) young people I have no acquaintance, 
except through some things of theirs (which have been sent out without 
my desire), and I confess that till I had read them I was not aware of 
the full extent of human absurdity. Like Garrick's ' Ode to Shakespeare,' 
they ' defy criticism.' These are of the personages who decry Pope. . . . 

35 Blackwood's, December, 1821. 



133 

Mr. Hunt redeems himself by occasional beauties ; but the rest of these 
poor creatures seem so far gone that I would not ' march through Coventry 
with them, that's flat ! ' were I in Mr. Hunt's place. To be sure, he has 
' led his ragamuffins where they will be well peppered ' ; but a system- 
maker must receive all sorts of proselytes. When they have really seen 
life — when they have felt it — when they have travelled beyond the far 
distant boundaries of the wilds of Middlesex — when they have overpassed 
the Alps of Highgate, and traced to its sources the Nile of the New River 
— then, and not till then, can it properly be permitted to them to despise 
Pope. . . . The grand distinction of the under forms of the new school of 
poets is their vulgarity. By this I do not mean that they are coarse, but 
' shabby-genteel,' as it is termed. A man may be coarse and yet not vulgar, 
and the reverse. ... It is in their finery that the new school are most 
vulgar, and they may be known by this- at once ; as what we called at Har- 
row " A Sunday blood " might be easily distinguished from a gentleman, 
although his clothes might be the better cut, and his boots the best black- 
ened of the two : — probably because he made the one or cleaned the other, 
with his own hands. ... In the present case, I speak of writing, not of 
persons. Of the latter I know nothing; of the former I judge as it is 
found." 36 

Byron's opinion of Keats is too well known to need repetition. 
He thought there was hope for Barry Cornwall if " he don't 
get spoiled by green tea and the praises of Pentonville and 
Paradise Row. The pity of these men is, that they never lived 
in high life nor in solitude: there is no medium for the knowl- 
edge of the busy or the still world. If admitted into high life 
for a season, it is merely as spectators — they form no part 
of the mechanism thereof." 37 

Blackzvood's of December, 1822, in a review of The Liberal, 
advised Byron to " cut the Cockney " — " by far the most un- 
accountable of God's works." Hunt is denominated " the 
menial of a lord." When Byron notwithstanding its advice 
continued his " conjunction with these deluded drivellers of 
Cockaigne " Blackzvood's grew savage towards the peer him- 
self : it is said that he suffered himself 

" to be so enervated by the unworthy Delilahs which have enslaved his 
imagination, as to be reduced to the foul office of displaying blind buf- 
fooneries before the Philistines of Cockaigne ... I feel a moral conviction 
that his lordship must have taken the Examiner, the Liberal, the Rimini, 

30 Letters and Journals, V, pp. 587-590. March 25, 1821. 

31 Ibid., V, pp. 362-363. September 12, 1821. 



134 

the Round Table, as his model, and endeavored to write himself down to 
the level of the capacities and the swinish tastes of those with whom he 
has the misfortune, originally, I believe, from charitable motives, to asso- 
ciate. This is the most charitable hypothesis which I can frame. Indeed 
there are some verses which have all the appearance of having been inter- 
polated by the King of the Cockneys." 38 

When Byron and Hunt had separated, Blackwood's attempted 
to reinstate Byron in his former position by declaring that 
he had been disgusted beyond endurance on Hunt's arrival 
in Italy and that he had cut him very soon in a " paroxysm 
of loathing." 39 

The declaration of war between the Cockneys and the Tory 
press was made with a review of the Story of Rimini in the 
Quarterly of January, 1816. From this time on Hunt was 
the choice prey of the two magazines, and others were attacked 
principally on account of him, or reached through him. Hunt's 
writings were termed " eruptions of a disease " with which 
he insists upon inoculating mankind ; " his language " an un- 
grammatical, unauthorized, chaotic jargon." Blackivood's of 
October, 18 17, contained the first of the long series of abusive 
articles which appeared in its columns. Hazlitt in the Edin- 
burgh Review in June of the preceding year had acclaimed 
the Story of Rimini to be " a reminder of the pure and glorious 
style that prevailed among us before French modes and French 
methods of criticism." In it he had discovered a resemblance 
to Chaucer, to the voluptuous pathos of Boccaccio and to the 
laughing graces of Ariosto. To offset such statements Black- 
wood's dubbed the new school the " Cockney School " and 
made Hunt its chief doctor and professor. (Later, in 1823, 
Blackivood's proudly claimed the honor of christening and 
said that the Quarterly used the epithet only when it had 
become a part of English criticism.) It declared the dedication 
to Byron an insult and the poem the product of affectation and 
gaudiness and continued : 

" The beaux are attorney's apprentices, with chapeau bras and Limerick 
gloves — fiddlers, harp teachers, and clerks of genius : the belles are faded, 

S3 Letters of Timothy Tickler, Esq., July, 1823. 
19 September, 1824. 



135 

fan-twinkling spinsters, prurient vulgar misses from school, and enormous 
citizen's wives. The company are entertained with luke-warm negus, and 
the sounds of a paltry piano forte. . . . His poetry resembles that of a man 
who has kept company with kept-mistresses. His muse talks indelicately 
like the tea-sipping milliner's girl. Some excuse for her there might have 
been, had she been hurried away by imagination or passion ; but with her, 
indecency seems a disease, she appears to speak unclean things from per- 
fect inanition." Hunt " would fain be always tripping and waltzing, and 
he is very sorry that he cannot be allowed to walk about in the morning 
with yellow breeches and flesh-colored silk stockings. He sticks an arti- 
ficial rosebud in his button hole in the midst of winter. He wears no 
neckcloth, and cuts his hair in imitation of the prints of Petrarch." 

Nature in the eyes of a Cockney was said to consist only of 
"green fields, jaunty streams, and o'er-arching leafiness;" no 
mountains were higher than Highgate-hill nor streams more 
pastoral than the Serpentine River. 40 Blackwood's was near 
the truth in its criticism of Hunt's conception of nature. While 
his appreciation was very genuine, it was restricted to rural 
or suburban scenes, "of the town, towny." 41 The scale was 
that of the window garden or a flower pot. Who but he could 
rhapsodize over a cut flower or a bit of green ; or could speak 
in spring "of being gay and vernal and daff odilean ? " 42 Yet 
he produced some delightful rural poetry. Take this for in- 
stance : 

" You know the rural feeling, and the charm 
That stillness has for a world-fretted ear, 
'Tis now deep whispering all about me here, 
With thousand tiny bushings, like a swarm 
Of atom bees, or fairies in alarm 
Or noise of numerous bliss from distant spheres."* 3 

The general characteristics of the school, briefly summar- 
ized, were said to be ignorance and vulgarity, an entire absence 
of religion, a vague and sour Jacobinism for patriotism, admi- 
ration of Chaucer and Spenser when they resemble Hunt, and 
extreme moral depravity and obscenity. November, 1817, 
of Blackzvood's contained the notorious accusation against the 

40 Hunt, Correspondence, I, p. 136. 

41 Daniel Maclise, A Gallery of Illustrious Literary Characters (1830- 
1838). London, n. d., p. 132. 

42 William Dorling, Memoirs of Dora Greenwell, London, 1885, p. 75. 
** Epistle to Barnes. 



136 

Story of Rimini of immorality of purpose. 44 The poem was 
called "the genteel comedy of incest." Francesca's sin was 
declared voluntary and her sufferings sentimental. The 
changes from the historical version, an espousal by proxy 
instead of betrothal, the omission of deformity, the substitu- 
tion of the duel for murder, and the happy opening, were pro- 
nounced wilful perversions for the furtherance of corruption. 
Ford's treatment of the same theme much more elevated. 
Hunt's defense was that the catastrophe was Francesca's suf- 
ficient punishment. 45 In May, 1818, the same charge was re- 
peated : " No woman who has not either lost her chastity, or 
is desirous of losing it, ever read the ' Story of Rimini ' with- 
out the flushings of shame and of self-reproach." 

The Examiner of November 2 and 16, 181 7, quoted extracts 
from the first of these articles and called upon the author to 
avow himself; otherwise to an "utter disregard of Truth and 
Decency, he adds the height of Meanness and Cowardice." 4 * 5 
As might have been expected, this demand brought forth noth- 
ing more than a disavowal from the London publishers who 
handled Blackwood's of all responsibility in the matter. June 
14, 1 8 18, The Examiner assailed the editor of the Quarterly 
as a government critic who disguised a political quarrel in 
literary garb, as a sycophant to power and wealth : 

44 This accusation has been made still more recently by Mr. Palgrave, 
who speaks of the " slipshod morality of Rimini and Hero." Poetical 
Works of John Keats, p. 263. 

45 In 1844, however, he refashioned the whole poem, now representing 
Giovanni as deformed and as the murderer of his wife and brother, 
whereas in the version of 1816 Paolo had been slain in a duel and 
Francesca had died of grief. In 1855, he made a second change and went 
back to the 181 6 version. The duel he preserved in the fragment, Cor so 
and Emilia. Hunt's translation of Dante's episode appeared in Stories of 
Verse, 1855. In 1857 he made a third change and restored the version 
of 1844. 

46 The editor of Blackwood's in a letter dated April 20, 1818, offered 
space to P. G. Patmore for a favourable critique of Hunt's poetry, re- 
serving to himself the privilege of answering such an article. He stated 
further that if Hunt had employed less violent language towards the re- 
viewer of Rimini he might have been given a friendly explanation. 
Memoirs and Correspondence of Coventry Patmore, II, p. 438. 



137 

" Grown old in the service of corruption, he drivels on to the last with 
prostituted impotence, and shameless effrontery ; salves a meagre reputa- 
tion for wit, by venting the driblets of his spleen and impertinence on 
others ; answers their arguments by confuting himself ; mistakes habitual 
obtuseness of intellect for a particular acuteness, not to be imposed upon 
by shallow pretensions ; unprincipled rancor for zealous loyalty ; and the 
irritable, discontented, vindictive, and peevish effusions of bodily pain and 
mental infirmity, for proofs of refinement of taste and strength of under- 
standing." 

This condescension to a use of his enemies' weapons only 
weakened Hunt's position. Yet in the light of the secrecy 
maintained at the time and the mystery surrounding the matter 
ever since, it is interesting to read Blackwood's contorted reply 
to Hunt's demand for an open fight, written as late as Janu- 
ary, 1826: 

" Nor let it be said that, either on this or any other occasion, the moral 
Satyrists (sic) in this magazine ever wished to remain unknown. How, in- 
deed, could they wish for what they well knew was impossible ? All the 
world has all along known the names of the gentlemen who have uttered 
our winged words. Nor did it ever, for one single moment, enter into the 
head of any one of them to wish — not to scorn concealment. To gentle- 
men, too, they at all times acted like gentlemen ; but was it ever dreamt by 
the wildest that they were to consider as such the scum of the earth ? ' If I 
but knew who was my slanderer,' was at one time the ludicrous skraigh of 
the convicted Cockney. Why did he not ask ? and what would he have 
got by asking? Shame and confusion of face — unanswerable argument and 
cruel chastisement. For before one word would have been deigned to the 
sinner, he must have eaten — and the bitter roll is yet ready for him — all 
the lies he had told for the last twenty years, and must either have choked 
or been kicked." 

In January, 1818, Blackzvood's issued a manifesto of their 
future campaign. The Keatses, Shelleys, and Webbes, were 
to be taken in turn. The charges of profligacy and obscenity 
against Hunt's poem were repeated, but it was emphatically 
stated that there was no implication made in reference to his 
private character — an ominous statement that any one with 
any knowledge of Blackwood's usual methods could only con- 
strue into a warning that such an implication would speedily 
follow. The article was signed " Z," a shadowy personage 
who sorrowfully called himself the " present object " of Hunt's 
resentment and dislike. He seems to have expected gratitude 



138 

and affection in return for articles that would compare favor- 
ably with the most scurrilous billingsgate of any of the Hu- 
manistic controversies. In May, 1818, with due ceremony, 
Hunt was proclaimed " King of the Cockneys " and editor of 
the Cockney Court-gazette. His kingdom was the " Land of 
Cockaigne," a borrowing, most probably, from the thirteenth 
century satire by that name. Keats's sonnet containing the 
line " He of the rose, the violet, the spring " became the official 
Cockney poem — by an " amiable but infatuated bardling." 
John Hunt was made Prince John. With the lapse of time 
Hunt's crimes seem to have multiplied. He is called a lunatic, 
a libeller, an abettor of murder and of assassination, a coward, 
an incendiary, a Jacobin, a plebeian and a foe to virtue. He 
is instructed, if sickened with the sins and follies of mankind, 
to withdraw 

" to the holy contemplation of your own divine perfections, and there ' perk 
up with timid mouth ' ' and lamping eyes ' (as you have it) upon what to 
you is dearer and more glorious than all created things besides, till you 
become absorbed in your own identity — motionless, mighty, and magnifi- 
cent, in the pure calm of Cockneyism . . . instead of rousing yourself 
from your lair, like some noble beast when attacked by the hunter, you 
roll yourself round like a sick hedgehog, that has crawled out into the 
' crisp ' gravel walk round your box at Hampstead, and oppose only the 
feeble pricks of your hunch'd-up back to the kicks of any one who wishes 
less to hurt you, than to drive you into your den." 

The Quarterly of the same month contained the notorious re- 
view of Foliage. Southey, in a counterfeited Cockney style, 
contorts Hunt's devotion to his leafy luxuries, his flowerets, 
wine, music and other social joys into Epicureanism 47 and like 
unsound principles. He ever goes so far as to accuse him of 
incest and adultery in his private life. There are disguised but 
unmistakable references to Keats and to Shelley; the latter is 
credited with evil doings that fall little short of machinations 
with the devil. The volume of poems, which was the ostensible 
pretext for this parade of foul slander, not a word of which was 
true, has, Southey says, richness of language and picturesque- 

* 7 This charge was renewed in a review of Hunt's Autobiography in 1850 
in the Eclectic Review, XCII, p. 416. 



139 

ness of imagery. 48 The July number of Blackwood's went a 
step beyond Southey and identified the characters of the Story 
of Rimini with Hunt and his sister-in-law, Elizabeth Kent. 
After ostentatiously giving currency to the scandal, " Z " then 
proceeds to deny the rumor — which had no existence save in 
the minds of Hunt's vilifiers — in order to preserve immunity 
from libel. At the time that Lamb replied to Southey in 1823 
he took up these charges made against Hunt in 1818. He said: 

" I was admitted to his household for several years, and do most solemnly 
aver that I believe him to be in his domestic relations as correct as any 
man. He chose an ill-judged subject for a poem. ... In spite of ' Rimini,' 
I must look upon its author as a man of taste and a poet. He is better 
than so ; he is one of the most cordial-minded men that I ever knew, and 
matchless as a fireside companion. I do not mean to affront or wound 
your feelings when I say that in his more genial moods, he has often re- 
minded me of you." 49 

A facetious bit of prose On Sonnet Writing and a Sonnet on 
Myself in Blackwood's of April, 1819, parodied excellently the 
Cockney conceit and mannerisms. The September number 
contrasted Henry Hunt, the representative of the Cockney 
School of Politics, with Leigh Hunt, of the Cockney School of 
Poetry; resenting loudly the claim of the two to prominence 
for " even Douglasses never had more than one Bell-the-cat 
at a time." While Henry Hunt " the brawny white feather of 
Cockspur-street " addresses street mobs, the other Hunt, " the 

48 Byron greatly resented Southey's article : "I am glad Mr. Southey 
owns that article on Foliage which excited my choler so much. But who 
else could have been the author? Who but Southey would have had the 
baseness, under the pretext of reviewing the work of one man, insidiously 
to make it nest work for hatching malicious calumnies against others ? 
... I say nothing of the critique itself on Foliage; with the exception 
of a few sonnets, it was unworthy of Hunt. But what was the object 
of that article? I repeat, to villify and scatter his dark and devilish 
insinuation against me and others. (Medwin, Conversations of Lord Byron, 
p. 102.) Again Byron wrote of Southey in 1820 : " Hence his quarterly 
overflowings, political and literary, in what he has termed himself ' the 
ungentle craft,' and his special wrath against Mr. Leigh Hunt, not with- 
standing that Hunt has done more for Wordsworth's reputation as a 
poet (such as it is), than all the Lakers could in their interchange of 
praises for the last twenty-five years." (Letters and Journals, V, p. 84.) 

,J London Magazine, October, 1823. 



140 

lank and sallow hypochondriac of the ' leafy rise ' and ' farmy 
fields ' of Hampstead," " the whining milk-sop sonneteer of 
the Examiner " is said to speak to a " sorely depressed remnant 
of ' single gentlemen ' in lodgings, and single ladies we know 
not where — a generation affected with headaches, tea-drinking 
and all the nostalgia of the nerves." It is hardly necessary to 
add that there was no connection whatsoever between the two 
men. 

Blackwood' s of October, 1819, announced Foliage to be a 
posthumous publication of Hunt's, presented to the public by 
his three friends, Keats, Haydon and Novello. An affecting 
picture is drawn of the now-departed Hunt in his once familiar 
costume of dressing-gown, yellow breeches and red slippers, 
sipping tea, playing whist and writing sonnets. His statement 
in the preface that a " love of sociability, of the country, and 
the fine imagination of the Greeks " had prompted the poems 
is greatly ridiculed. The first is said to have caused his death 
by an over-indulgence in tea-drinking; his feeling for nature 
is said to be limited to the lawns, stiles and hedges of Hamp- 
stead and his knowledge of the imagination of the Greeks to 
quotations. The Sonnet On Receiving a Crown of Ivy from 
Keats came in for especial derision — " a blister clapped on his 
head " would have been considered more appropriate. 

Hunt's Literary Pocket Books for 1819 and 1820 were re- 
viewed in Blackwood's in December, 1819, in a remarkably 
kind article. They are recommended as worth three times the 
price. The reviewer, who was no other than " Christopher 
North," stated that he had purchased six copies. Blackzvood's 
of September, 1820, reviewed The Indicator; of December, 
1821, the 1822 Literary Pocket Book; the last contained coarse 
and unkind allusions to Hunt's health. It declared the pro- 
duction of sonnets in London and its suburbs about equal to 
the number of births and deaths. In reply, The Examiner of 
December 16, 1821, in an article entitled Modern Criticism, 
italicised extracts from Blackwood's to bring out peculiarities 
of grammar and diction. Blackzvood's of January, 1822, con- 
tained a sonnet which it was pretended was Hunt's New 
Year's greeting, but which was instead a clever parody on his 
sonnet-style. 



141 

The issue of the next month announced the triumvirate 
of The Liberal and, through Byron's " noble generosity," 
Hunt's departure with his wife and " little Johnnys " upon a 
" perilous voyage on the un-cockney ocean. . . . He and his 
companions will now, like his own Nereids, 

turn 
And toss upon the ocean's lifting billows, 
Making them banks and pillows, 
Upon whose springiness they lean and ride ; 
Some with an inward back; some upward-eyed, 
Feeling the sky ; and some with sidelong hips, 
O'er which the surface of the water slips." 

The first number of the Nodes Ambrosiance appeared in March. 
The following passage refers to the launching of The Liberal 
in a dialogue between the Editor and O'Doherty: 

O. Hand me the lemons. This holy alliance of Pisa will be a queer 
affair. The Examiner has let down its price from a tenpenny to a seven- 
penny. They say the Editor here is to be one of that faction, for they must 
publish in London, of course. 

Ed. Of course, but I doubt if they will be able to sell many. Byron 
is a prince, but these dabbling dogglerers destroy every dish they dip in. 

O. Apt alliteration's artful aid. 

Ed. Imagine Shelly [sic], with his spavin, and Hunt, with his staingalt, 
going in harness with such a caperer as Byron, three-a-breast. He'll knock 
the wind out of them both the first canter. 

O. 'Tis pity Keats is dead. — I suppose you could not venture to publish 
a sonnet in which he is mentioned now ? The Quarterly (who killed him, 
as Shelly says) would blame you. 

Ed. Let's hear it. Is it your own ? 

O. No ; 'twas written many months ago by a certain great Italian genius, 
who cuts a figure about the London routs — one Fudgiolo. 

Ed. Try to recollect it. (Here follows the sonnet.) 

Blackwood's of December, 1822, had passages on the Cockney 
School in Nodes Ambrosiance. Number VII. of the series of 
articles on its members reviewed Hunt's Florentine Lovers, or, 
in their phrasing, his Art of Love, the story of which is wil- 
fully misrepresented. Hunt is declared " the most irresistible 
knight-errant errotic extant . . . the most contemptible little 
capon of the bantam breed that ever vainly dropped a wing, or 
sidled up to a partlet. He can no more crow than a hen. 
Byron makes love like Sir Peter, Moore like a tom-tit and 



142 

Hunt like a bantam." The writer then charges Hunt with 
irreligion, indecency, sensuality and licentiousness. He is 
called " A Fool " and an " exquisite idiot." Such a burst of 
rage on the part of the anti-Cockneys, after their wrath had 
begun to cool as seen in the review of the Literary Pocket 
Book, was doubtless due to Hunt's association in The Liberal 
with Byron: "What can Byron mean by patronizing a Cock- 
ney? ... by far the most unaccountable of God's works . . . 
a scavenger raking in the filth of the common sewers and 
stews, for a few gold pieces thrown down by a nobleman. . . . 
But that Satan should stoop to associate with an incubus, shows 
that there is degeneracy in hell." The tirade closes with a 
poem of six stanzas of which this is a fair sample : 

" The kind Cockney Monarch, he bids us farewell 
Taking his place in the Leghorn-bound smack — 
In the smack, in the smack — Ah ! will he ne'er come back ? " 

At the appearance of the last number of The Liberal, Black- 
zvood's rejoiced thus : 

" Their hum, to be sure, is awfully subdued. They remind me of a mutch- 
kin of wasps in a bottle, all sticking to each other — heads and tails — rumps 
glued with treacle and vinegar, wax and pus — helpless, hopeless, stingless, 
wingless, springless — utterly abandoned of air — choked and choking — mu- 
tually entangling and entangled — and mutually disgusting and disgusted — 
the last blistering ferment of incarnate filth working itself into one mass 
of oblivion in one bruised and battered sprawl of swipes and venom." M 

Blackwood's of October, 1823, declared Hazlitt to be the 
most loathsome and Hunt the most ludicrous of the group. 
Before the close of the year Hunt threatened the magazine 
with a suit for libel. This threat did not prevent in January 
a notice of Hunt's Ultra-Crepidarius, a satire on Gifford much 
in the vein and style of the Feast of the Poets. Mercury and 
Venus come to earth in search of the former's lost shoe. On 
their arrival they discover that it has been converted by com- 
mand of the gods into a man named Gifford. The satire is 
facetiously attributed by Blackwood's to Master Hunt, aged 
ten; a "small, smart, smattering satirist of an air-haparent 

M September, 1823. 



143 

. . . Cockney chick." The parent is reproached for putting a 
child in such a position. 

" Had Leigh Hunt, the papa, boldly advanced on any great emergency, 
at the peril of his life and crown, to snatch the legitimate issue of his own 
loins from the shrivelled hands of some blear-eyed old beldam, into whose 
small cabbage-garden Maximilian had headed a forlorn hope, good and well, 
and beautiful ; but not so, when a stalwart and cankered carl like Mr. 
Gifford, with his quarter-staff, belabours the shoulders of his Majesty, and 
sire shoves son between himself and the Pounder . . . such pusillanimity 
involves forfeiture of the Crown, and from this hour we declare Leigh 
dethroned, and the boy-bard of Ultra-Crepidarius King of Cockaigne." 

Wearying of this make-believe, the reviewer discards such 
a possibility of authorship and considers Hunt's grandfather, 
a legendary personage whose age is put at ninety-six and 
who is given the name of Zachariah Hunt : " What a gross, 
vulgar, leering old dog it is ! Was ever the couch of the 
celestials so profaned before ! One thinks of some aged cur, 
with mangy back, glazed eye-balls dropping rheum, and with 
most disconsolate muzzard muzzling among the fleas of his 
abominable loins, by some accident lying upon the bed where 
Love and Beauty are embracing and embraced." As a final 
potentiality the reviewer deliberates whether Hunt by any pos- 
sibility could have been the author and closes with this perora- 
tion : " There he goes soaking, and swaling, and straddling up 
the sky, like Daniel O'Rouke on goose back! . . . Toes in if 
you please. The goose is galloping — why don't you stand in 
the stirrups? . . . Alas Pegasus smells his native marshes; 
instead of making for Olympus, he is off in a wallop to the 
fens of Lincolnshire! Bellerophon has lost his seat — now he 
clings desperately by the tail — a single feather holds him from 
eternity." 

Article VIII of the regular series, reviewing Hunt's Bacchus 
in Tuscany, appeared in Blackwood's of August, 1825. His 
allegiance to Apollo in Cockaigne is declared to have been 
changed to Bacchus in Tuscany, and his usual beverage of 
weak tea to a diet of wine on which he swills like a hippopota- 
mus. He is depicted as Jupiter Tonans and his manner to 
Hebe is compared with a "natty Bagman to the barmaid of 
the Hen and Chickens." The same number noticed Sotheby's 



144 

translation of Homer. The opportunity was not lost to refer 
unfavorably to Hunt's translations of the same in Foliage. 

The Rebellion of the Beasts; or The Ass is Dead! Long Live 
the Ass!!! By a Late Fellozv of St. John's College, Cambridge, 
with the motto " A man hath pre-eminence above a beast," was 
published anonymously by J. & H. L. Hunt in London in 1825. 
There is every reason to believe that it was by Hunt, although 
he does not mention it elsewhere. It is an exceedingly clever 
satire on monarchy and far surpasses anything else of the kind 
that he ever did. Had the Tories of Edinburgh suspected the 
author it would probably have made them apoplectic with rage. 

With Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries the rage 
of the two periodicals reached a grand climax and seemingly 
exhausted itself. The Quarterly in March of the same year 
in which it appeared said : " The last wiggle of expiring imbe- 
cility appears in these days to be a volume of personal Remi- 
niscences." It characterized the book as a melancholy product 
of coxcombry and cockneyism : as " dirty gabble about men's 
wives and men's mistresses — and men's lackeys, and even the 
mistresses of the lackeys : " as " the miserable book of a mis- 
erable man ; the little airy fopperies of its manner are like the 
fantastic trip and convulsive simpers of some poor worn- 
out wanton, struggling between famine and remorse, leering 
through her tears." Blackwood's of the same month pictured 
Hunt riding in the tourney lists of Cockaigne to the tune of 
Cock-a-doodle-doo. It accused him, besides those misde- 
meanors many times previously exploited, of clumsy casuistry, 
of falsehood regarding his transaction with Colburn, of ill- 
breeding in dragging his wife into such a book. The following 
is the culmination of the author's anger: 

" Mr. Hunt, who to the prating pertness of the parrot, the chattering im- 
pudence of the magpie — to say nothing of the mowling malice of the 
monkey — adds the hissiness of the bill-pouting gander, and the gobble- 
bluster of the bubbly-jock — to say nothing of the forward valour of the 
brock or badger — threatens death and destruction to all writers of prose 
or verse, who shall dare to say white is the black of his eye, or that his 
book is not like a vase lighted up from within with the torch of truth . . . 
Frezeland Bantam is the vainest bird that attempts to crow ; and by and 
by our feverish friend comes out into the light, and begins to trim his 



145 

plumage! His toilet over he basks on the ditch side, and has not the 
smallest doubt in the world that he is a Bird of Paradise." 

The Literary Gazette joined in the hue-and-cry against "the 
pert vulgarity and miserable low-mindedness of Cockney-land," 
against " the disagreeable, envious, bickering, hating, slandering, 
contemptible, drivelling and be-devilling wretches." 51 Black- 
wood's of February, 1830, in a review of Moore's Life, Letters 
and Journals of Lord Byron, satirizes the conversational habits 
of the Cockneys "who all keep chattering during meals and 
after them, like so many monkeys, emulous and envious of each 
other's eloquence, and pulling out with their paws fetid obser- 
vations from their cheek-pouches, which are nuts to them, 
though instead of kernel, nothing but snuff." 

Not only did the articles in Blackwood's cease after this last, 
but in 1834 a full and complete apology was tendered Hunt by 
Christopher North: 

" And Shelley truly loved Leigh Hunt. Their friendship was honorable 
to both, for it was as disinterested as sincere ; and I hope Gurney will let 
a certain person in the City understand that I treat his offer of a reviewal 
of Mr. Hunt's London Journal with disdain. If he has anything to say 
against us or that gentleman, either conjunctly or severally, let him out 
with it in some other channel ; and I promise him a touch and taste of 
the crutch. He talks to me of Maga's desertion of principle ; but if he 
were a Christian — nay, a man — his heart and his head would tell him that 
the Animosities are mortal, but the Humanities live for ever — and that 
Leigh Hunt has more talent in his little finger than the puling prig, who 
has taken upon himself to lecture Christopher North in a scrawl crawling 
with forgotten falsehoods." 02 

Professor Wilson's invitation to Hunt to contribute to his 
magazine was declined politely but firmly. Leigh Hunt wrote 
to Charles Cowden Clarke: " Blackzvood's and I, poetically, 
are becoming the best friends in the world. The other day 
there was an Ode in Blackwood in honour of the memory 
of Shelley; and I look for one of Keats. I hope this will 
give you faith in glimpses of the Golden Age." 53 Nowhere 

51 Reprinted in the Museum of Foreign Literature, XII, p. 568. 
. M August, 1834, XXVI, p. 273. 

53 C. C. Clarke, Recollections of Writers, p. 244. The year in which the 
letter was written is not given, but it must fall within the years 1833-1840, 
the period of Hunt's residence at Chelsea. 



146 

does Hunt show resentment or malice for the sufferings of 
years. Yet Mrs. Oliphant, in her advocacy of the Black- 
wood group, goes the length of saying that he displayed 
" feebleness of mind and body," " petty meannesses," " unwil- 
lingness or incapacity to take a high view even of friends or 
benefactors," a lightheartedness and frivolity, and " enduring 
spite." She grudgingly admits his " almost feminine grace and 
charm." She says that he thought his friends deserved only 
" casual thanks when they did what was but their manifest 
duty . . . bitter and spiteful satire when they attended to their 
own affairs instead." She makes a radically false statement 
when she says that he defended Byron, Shelley, Keats, Moore, 
and many others in The Examiner, but found an opportunity 
to say an evil word of most of them afterwards ; and that 
when Blackwood's or the Quarterly attacked him, he was con- 
vinced that " it must be really one of his friends who was being 
struck at through him." 54 

The Quarterly delayed longer in assuming a friendly atti- 
tude. It remained silent until 1867, when Bulwer, in a com- 
parison of Hunt and Hazlitt, conceded to the former a grace- 
fulness and kindliness of disposition, a smoothness of tone and 
delicacy of finish in his writing. There was no formal apology 
as in the case of Blackwood's. 

Carlyle says that Hunt suffered an " obloquy and calumny 
through the Tory press — perhaps a greater quantity of base- 
ness, persevering, implacable calumny, than any other living 
writer has undergone ; which long course of hostility . . . may 
be regarded as the beginning of his worst distresses, and a 
main cause of them down to this day." 55 Macaulay said : 
" There is hardly a man living whose merits have been so 
grudgingly allowed, and whose faults have been so cruelly 
expiated." 56 For a period of more than a quarter of a cen- 
tury, from the beginning of the crusade against him until about 
1845, partly as the result of the misrepresentation of the press, 

64 The Victorian Age, I, pp. 94-101. 
55 Hunt, Autobiography, II, p. 267. 

86 Critical, Historical and Miscellaneous Essays, New York and Boston, 
i860, IV, p. 350. 



147 

and partly as a natural consequence of his own foibles and 
early blunders, a pretty general antagonism existed against 
him. At the end of that time his honesty and talents were rec- 
ognized and rewarded publicly by the government. And the 
public has come more and more to esteem his personal char- 
acter. 

The Quarterly of April, 1818, contained the stupid and 
savage review of Endymion, provoked almost solely by the 
Keats's offence in being the friend and public protege of Leigh 
Hunt. The simple and manly preface 57 was misconstrued into 
a formula for Huntian poetry, and its allusion to a " London 
drizzle or a Scotch mist " into a " deprecation of criticism in a 
feverish manner." Leigh Hunt asked years afterwards how 
" anybody could answer such an appeal to the mercy of 
strength with the cruelty of weakness. All the good for which 
Mr. Gifford pretended to be zealous, he might have effected 
with pain to no one, and glory to himself ; and therefore all the 
evil he mixed with it was of his own making." 58 The general 
trend of the article and the reviewer's acknowledgment that 
he had read only the first book of the poem are well known. 
The following passage refers directly to Keats's connection 
with Hunt : 

" The author is a copyist of Mr. Hunt, but he is more unintelligible, almost 
as rugged, twice as diffuse, and ten times more tiresome and absurd than 
his prototype ; who, though he impudently presumed to seat himself in the 
chair of criticism, and to measure his own poetry by his own standard, 
yet generally had a meaning. But Mr. Keats advanced no dogmas which 
he was bound to support by examples ; his nonsense is therefore quite 
gratuitous ; he writes it for his own sake, and, being bitten by Mr. Leigh 
Hunt's insane criticism, more than rivals the insanity of his poetry." 69 

67 The first preface to Endymion was rejected by Keats on the advice of 
his friends who thought that it was in the vain yet deprecating tone of 
Hunt's prefaces. To this charge Keats replied : " I am not aware that 
there is anything like Hunt in it (and if there is, it is my natural way, and 
I have something in common with Hunt)." The second preface justifies the 
charge. 

5j London Journal, January 21, 1835. 

69 Of Southey's attack on Hunt and others in May, 1818, Keats wrote: 
" I have more than a laurel from the Quarterly Reviewers, for they have 
smothered me in 'Foliage.'" {Works, IV, p. 115.) 



148 

Blackzvood's followed the Quarterly's lead in August, re- 
viewing Keats's first volume at the same time with Endymion. 
He is reproached with madness, with metromania, with low 
origin, with perversion of talents suited only to an apprentice- 
ship, all because he admired Hunt sufficiently to adopt some of 
his theories and because he had been called in The Examiner 
one of " two stars of glorious magnitude." The sonnet Written 
on the day that Mr. Leigh Hunt left prison, the Sonnet to 
Haydon, and Sleep and Poetry, are anathematized. In the 
last Keats is said to speak with 

" contempt of some of the most exquisite spirits that the world ever pro- 
duced, merely because they did not happen to exert their faculties in la- 
borious affected descriptions of flowers seen in window-pots, or cascades 
heard at Vauxhall ; in short, because they chose to be wits, philosophers, 
patriots, and poets, rather than to found the Cockney school of versification, 
morality and politics, a century before its time. After blaspheming him- 
self into a fury against Boileau, etc., Mr. Keats comforts himself and his 
readers with a view of the present more promising state of affairs ; above 
all, with the ripened glories of the poet of Rimini." 

The denunciation of the " calm, settled, drivelling idiocy " of 
Endymion in the same article is famous, but in a discussion of 
the Cockney School it is well to recall the following: 

" From his prototype Hunt, John Keats has acquired a sort of vague idea, 
that the Greeks were a most tasteful people, and that no mythology can 
be so finely adopted for the purpose of poetry as theirs. It is amusing to 
see what a hand the Cockneys make of this mythology ; the one confesses 
that he never read the Greek Tragedians and the other knows Homer only 
from Chapman ; and both of them write about Apollo, Pan, Nymphs, Muses, 
and Mysteries, as might be expected from persons of their education. We 
shall not, however, enlarge at present upon this subject, as we mean to 
dedicate an entire paper to the classical attainments and attempts of the 
Cockney poets." 

The versification is said to expose the defects of Hunt's system 
ten times more than Hunt's own poetry. The mocking close 
is as follows : " It is a better and a wiser thing to be a starved 
apothecary than a starved poet ; so back to the shop, Mr. John, 
back to ' plasters, pills, and ointment boxes,' etc. But, for 
Heaven's sake, young Sangrado, be a little more sparing of 
extenuatives and soporifics in your practice than you have 
been in your poetry." 



149 

The delusion that these articles were the direct cause of 
Keats's death, an impression given wide currency by the pas- 
sages in Adonais 60 and Don Juan® 1 has long since been dis- 
pelled by the evidence of Hunt, 62 Fanny Brawne, C. C. Clarke 
and, most important of all, Keats's own letters. 63 It is not 
likely that he was affected by them as much as either Hunt or 
Hazlitt, for he showed more indifference and greater dignity 
under fire than either. His courage and his craving for future 
fame do not seem to have wavered during the year in which 
they appeared. Joseph Severn has testified that he never heard 
Keats mention Blackzvood's and that he considered what his 
friend endured from the press as " one of the least of his 
miseries " ; that he knew so little about the whole matter that 
when he met Sir Walter Scott in Rome many years after he 
was at a loss to understand Scott's embarrassment when 
Keats's name was mentioned; and it was not until a friend 
afterwards explained that Scott was connected with one of the 
magazines which was popularly supposed to have caused 
Keats's death that he could fathom it. 64 

It would have been impossible for a more obtuse man than 
Leigh Hunt not to have realized from the import of these two 
articles that Keats was abused largely because of the associa- 
tion with himself and, but for that, might have remained 
in peaceful obscurity. Hunt therefore wisely refrained from 
further defense as it would only have made matters worse. 
During the year 1818 only one notice of Keats appeared in 

60 Shelley wrote also a letter to the Quarterly Review remonstrating 
against its treatment of Keats but the letter was never sent. (Milnes, Life, 
Letters and Literary Remains of John Keats, I, p. 208 ff.) 

61 In Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries , Hunt states that he 
informed Byron of his mistake and received a promise that it would be 
altered, but that the rhyme about article and particle was too good to throw 
away (p. 266). 

63 Just before leaving England, Keats with Hunt visited the house where 
Tom had died. He told Hunt in this connection that he was " dying of a 
broken heart." {Literary Examiner, 1823, p. 117.) 

83 Works, IV, pp. 42-43, 169-171, 174, 177, 194; V, pp. 27, 29. 

64 Atlantic Monthly, XI, p. 406. 



150 

The Examiner. 65 During the same year three sonnets to Keats 
appeared in Foliage. Yet it has been several times stated that 
Hunt forsook Keats at this time. Keats, under the hallucina- 
tion of disease himself, accused Hunt of neglect, yet there 
were three reasons which made a persistent defense on the 
part of Hunt not to be expected. First, he was unaware, ac- 
cording to his own statement, of the extent of the defamation ; 
second, he realized that his championship and friendship had 
been the original cause of wrath in the enemies' camp against 
Keats and that any activity on his part would only incense them 
further, 66 and third, he did not approve of Keats's only pub- 
lication of that year and could not give it his support, as he 
frankly told Keats himself. Mr. Forman and Mr. Rossetti 
both scout the idea of disertion and disloyalty. Yet Mr. Hall 
Caine has made much 67 of a charge which has been denied by 
Hunt and ultimately repudiated by Keats. He has, moreover, 
overlooked the fact that Hunt's bitter satire, Ultra-Crepidarius, 
was written in 1818 as a reply to Keats's critics but was with- 
held from publication, presumably only for reasons of pru- 
dence, until 1823. When Keats's feeling on the subject was 
brought to his knowledge years later, Hunt wrote : 

" Keats appears to have been of opinion that I ought to have taken 
more notice of what the critics said against him. And perhaps I ought. 
My notices of them may not have been sufficient. I may have too much 
contented myself with panegyrizing his genius, and thinking the objections 
to it of no ultimate importance. Had he given me a hint to another 
effect, I should have acted upon it. But in truth, as I have before inti- 
mated, I did not see a twentieth part of what was said against us ; nor 

65 October n, 1818. It included two reprints from other papers. The 
first was a letter taken from the Morning Chronicle signed J. S. It pre- 
dicted that if Keats would " apostatise his friendship, his principles, and 
his politics (if he have any) he may even command the approbation of the 
Quarterly Review." This was followed by extracts from an article by 
John Hamilton Reynolds in the Alfred Exeter Paper praising Keats for his 
power of vitalizing heathen mythology and for his resemblance to Chapman 
and calling Gifford " a Lottery Commissioner and Government Pensioner " 
who persecuted Keats by " intrigue of literature and contrivance of politi- 
cal parties." 

66 Dante Gabriel Rossetti suggests this possibility in a letter to Mr. Hall 
Caine. (Caine, Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 179.) 

67 Cobwebs of Criticism, p. 137. 



151 

had I the slightest notion, at that period, that he took criticism so much to 
heart. I was in the habit, though a public man, of living in a world of 
abstractions of my own ; and I regarded him as of a nature still more ab- 
stracted, and sure of renown. Though I was a politician (so to speak), 
I had scarcely a political work in my library. Spensers and Arabian Tales 
filled up the shelves ; and Spenser himself was not remoter, in my eyes, from 
all the common-places of life, than my new friend. Our whole talk was 
made up of idealisms. In the streets we were in the thick of the old woods. 
I little suspected, as I did afterwards, that the hunters had struck him ; 
and never at any time did I suspect that he could have imagined it desired 
by his friends. Let me quit the subject of so afflicting a delusion." 68 

The Edinburgh Review of August, 1820, discussed En- 
dymion and the 1820 volume. While it lamented the extrava- 
gances and obscurities, the " intoxication of sweetness " and the 
perversion of rhyme, it gave Keats due credit for his genius 
and his appreciation of the spirit of poetry. Hunt's review 
of Lamia 69 and the other poems of the 1820 volume appeared 
in The Indicator of the same month. Blackwood's answered 
the next month, abusing Hunt roundly and faintly praising the 
poems. The following proves that their chief object was to 
strike Hunt through Keats : 

" It is a pity that this young man, John Keats, author of Endymion, and 
some other poems, should have belonged to the Cockney School — for he is 
evidently possessed of talents that, under better direction, might have done 
very considerable things. As it is, he bids fair to sink himself beneath 
such a mass of affectation, conceit, and Cockney pedantry, as I never ex- 
pected to see heaped together by anybody, except the first founder of the 
School . . . There is much merit in some of the stanzas of Mr. Keats's 
last volume, which I have just seen ; no doubt he is a fine feeling lad — and 
I hope he will live to despise Leigh Hunt and be a poet." 

Hazlitt, in May of the next year wrote of the persecution of 
Keats in the Edinburgh Review: 

" Nor is it only obnoxious writers on politics themselves, but all their 
friends and acquaintances, and those whom they casually notice, that come 
under their sweeping anathema. It is proper to make a clear stage. The 
friends of Caesar must not be suspected of an amicable intercourse with 
patriotic and incendiary writers. A young poet comes forward ; an early 
and favourable notice appears of some boyish verses of his in the Examiner, 
independently of all political opinion. That alone decides fate ; and from 



M Autobiography, II, p. 43. 
68 See p. 50 ff. 



152 

that moment he is set upon, pulled in pieces, and hunted into his grave by 
the whole venal crew in full cry after him. It was crime enough that he 
dared to accept praise from so disreputable a quarter." 

In a letter from Hunt in Italy to The Examiner, July 7, 1822, 
an inquiry is made why Mr. Gifford has never noticed Keats's 
last volume : " that beautiful volume containing Lamia, the 
story from Boccaccio, and that magnificent fragment Hy- 
perion?" Blackzvood's of August replied to these two de- 
fenses in a tirade of twenty-two pages against the Edinburgh 
Reznezv, Hazlitt, and Hunt. The Nodes Ambrosianae of 
October continued in the same strain and, though the grave 
should have protected Keats from such banter, revived the old 
allusions to the apothecary and his pills. 

In self defense against the charge, that its attacks and those 
of the Quarterly had broken Keats's heart, Blackzvood's in 
January, 1826, said that it alone had dealt with Keats, Shelley 
and Procter with " common sense or common feeling " ; that, 
seeing Keats in the road to ruin with the Cockneys, it had 
" tried to save him by wholesome and severe discipline — they 
drove him to poverty, expatriation and death." The most 
remarkable part of this remarkable justification is this : " Keats 
outhunted Hunt in a species of emasculated pruriency, that, 
although invented in Little Britain, looks as if it were the 
prospect of some imaginative Eunuch's muse within the melan- 
choly inspiration of the Haram"(^'c). 

In March, 1828, in a review of Lord Byron and Some of 
His Contemporaries, the Quarterly seized the opportunity to 
revert to the author's friendship for Keats in its old hostile 
manner; and, in a criticism of Coleridge's poems in August, 
1834, to speak of his " dreamy, half-swooning style of verse 
criticised by Lord Byron (in language too strong for print) 
as the fatal sin of Mr. John Keats." Finally in March, 1840, 
in Journalism in France, there is another feeble effort at de- 
fense ; a resentment of the " twaddle " against the Quarterly 
" when they had the misfortune to criticise a sickly poet, who 
died soon afterwards, apparently for the express purpose of 
dishonoring us." 

One of Hunt's utterances in regard to Keats and his critics 
disposes finally of the matter : " his fame may now forgive the 



153 

critics who disliked his politics, and did not understand his 
poetry." 70 

From Italy Shelley wrote to Peacock : 

" I most devoutly wish I were living near London. . . . My inclination 
points to Hampstead ; but I do not know whether I should not make up 
my mind to something more completely suburban. What are mountains, 
trees, heaths, or even glorious and ever beautiful sky, with such sunsets as 
I have seen at Hampstead, to friends? Social enjoyment, in some form or 
other, is the Alpha and the Omega of existence. All that I see in Italy — 
and from my tower window I now see the magnificent peaks of the Apen- 
nine half enclosing the plain — is nothing. It dwindles into smoke in the 
mind, when I think of some familiar forms of scenery, little perhaps in 
themselves, over which old remembrances have thrown a delightful colour." 71 

The attacks of the Quarterly of May, 1818, on Shelley's pri- 
vate life and of April, 1819, on the Revolt of Islam, and the 
reply of The Examiner, have already been discussed on p. JJ 
of the third chapter. The assault was renewed in October, 
1821. The dominating characteristic of Shelley's poetry is 
said to be " its frequent and total want of meaning." In Pro- 
metheus Unbound there were said to be many absurdities " in 
defiance of common sense and even of grammar ... a mere 
jumble of words and heterogeneous ideas, connected by slight 
and accidental associations, among which it is impossible to 
distinguish the principal object from the accessory." The poem 
is declared to be full of " flagrant offences against morality and 
religion " and the poet to have gone out of his way to " revile 
Christianity and its author." As a final verdict the reviewer 
says : " Mr. Shelley's poetry is, in sober sadness, drivelling 
prose run mad ... Be his private qualities what they may, his 
poems . . . are at war with reason, with taste, with virtue, in 
short, with all that dignifies man, or that man reveres." The 
London Literary Gazette joined its forces to the Quarterly and 
scored Prometheus Unbound in 1820, Queen Mab in 1821. 
The Examiner of June 16, 23 and July 7, 1822, contained 
Hunt's answer to the two onslaughts. He accused the writer 
in the Quarterly of having used six stars to indicate an omis- 
sion, in order to imply that the name of Christ had been blas- 

70 Imagination and Fancy, p. 230. 

71 Dowden, Life of Shelley, II, p. 274. 



154 

phemously used; of having put quotation marks to sentences 
not in the author criticised and of having intentionally left out 
so much at times as to make the context seem absurd. At the 
same time Hunt stated that he agreed that Shelley's poetry was 
of "too abstract and metaphysical a cast . . . too wilful and 
gratuitous in its metaphors " ; and that it would have been 
better if he had kept metaphysics and polemics out of poetry. 
But at the same time he asserted that Shelley had written much 
that was unmetaphysical and poetically beautiful, as The Cenci, 
the Ode to a Skylark and Adonais. Of the second he wrote: 
" I know of nothing more beautiful than this, — more choice of 
tones, more natural in words, more abundant in exquisite, cor- 
dial, and most poetic associations." He characterized Southey's 
reviews as cant, Gifford's as bitter commonplace and Croker's 
as pettifogging. 

Blackwood's reviewed Adonais and The Cenci in December, 
1 82 1. The Delia Cruscans were reported to have come again 
from " retreats of Cockney dalliance in the London suburbs " 
and " by wainloads from Pisa." The Cockneys were said to 
hate everything that was good and true and honorable, all 
moral ties and Christian principles, and to be steeped in des- 
perate licentiousness. Adonais is fifty-five stanzas of "unin- 
telligible stuff" made up of every possible epithet that the 
poet has been able to " conglomerate in his piracy through the 
Lexicon." The sense has been wholly subordinated to the 
rhymes. The author is a " glutton of names and colours " and 
has accomplished no more than might be done on such subjects 
as Mother Goose, Waterloo or Tom Thumb. Two cruel and 
loathsome parodies follow : W outlier the city marshal broke 
his leg and an Elegy on My Tom Cat, which, it is claimed, are 
less nonsensical, verbose and inflated than Adonais. The 
Cenci is " a vulgar vocabulary of rottenness and reptilism " in 
an "odiferous, colorific and daisy-enamoured style." It is 
regretted by the writer that it is impossible to believe that 
Shelley's reason is unsettled, for this would be the best apology 
for the poem. 72 

M Other hostile reviews of The Cenci appeared in the Literary Gazette 
of April 1, 1820; the Monthly Magazine of the same month; and the 
London Magazine of May of the same year. 



155 

When The Liberal was organized Shelley was spoken of 
thus: 

" But Percy Bysshe Shelly has now published a long series of poems, the 
only object of which seems to be the promotion of atheism and incest; 
and we can no longer hesitate to avow our belief, that he is as worthy of 
co-operating with the King of Cockaigne, as he is unworthy of co-operating 
with Lord Byron. Shelley is a man of genius, but he has no sort of 
sense or judgment. He is merely ' an inspired idiot.' Leigh Hunt is a man 
of talents, but vanity and vulgarity neutralize all his efforts to pollute 
the public mind. Lord Byron we regard not only as a man of lofty genius, 
but of great shrewdness and knowledge of the world. What can he seri- 
ously hope from associating his name with such people as these ? " 7 * 

As in the case of Keats, Blackwood's did not have the 
decency to desist from its indecent articles after Shelley's 
death. September, 1824, this vulgar ridicule of the two dead 
poets appeared in answer to Bryan Waller Procter's review of 
Shelley's poems in the preceding number of the Edinburgh 
Review: 

" Mr. Shelley died, it seems, with a volume of Mr. Keats's poetry grasped 
with the hand in his bosom — rather an awkward posture, as you will be 
convinced if you try it. But what a rash man Shelley was, to put to sea 
in a frail boat with Jack's poetry on board. Why, man, it would sink a 
trireme. In the preface to Mr. Shelley's poems we are told that his 
' vessel bore out of sight with a favorable wind ; ' but what is that to the 
purpose? It had Endymion on board, and there was an end. Seventeen 
ton of pig iron would not be more fatal ballast. Down went the boat with 
a ' swirl ' ! I lay a wager that it righted soon after evicting Jack." 

In the face of these articles against it as evidence, Black- 
wood's, as early as January, 1828, had the audacity to claim — 
perhaps with the expectation that its audience was gifted with 
a sense of subtle humor — that Shelley had been praised in its 
pages for his fortitude, patience, and many other noble quali- 
ties, and that this praise had irritated the other Cockneys and 
made the whole trouble. If Keats suffered at the hands of the 
Edinburgh dictators for his association with Hunt the balance 
weighed in the other direction in the case of Shelley. All the 
crimes and opinions of which he was deemed guilty were 
passed on to Hunt. But Hunt gladly suffered for Shelley. 

"Blackwood's, January, 1822. 



156 

Hazlitt, although of Irish descent and a native of Shropshire, 
and of such independence as to belong to no school whatsoever, 
came in for a share of abuse second only in virulence to that 
showered on Hunt. 74 In the Quarterly of April, 1817, in a 
review of the Round Table, probably in retaliation for his 
abuse of Southey in The Examiner, Hazlitt's papers are de- 
nominated " vulgar descriptions, silly paradoxes, flat truisms, 
misty sophistry, broken English, ill-humour and rancorous 
abuse." His characterizations of Pitt and Burke are " vulgar 
and foul invective," and " loathsome trash." The author might 
have described washerwomen forever, the reviewer asserts, 
"but if the creature, in his endeavours to see the light, must 
make his way over the tombs of illustrious men, disfiguring the 
records of their greatness with the slime and filth which marks 
his tracks, it is right to point out that he may be flung back to 
the situation in which nature designed that he should grovel." 

The Characters of Shakespeare's Plays was made an excuse 
for dissecting the morals and understanding of this "poor 
cankered creature." 75 The Lectures on the English Poets is 
characterized as a " third predatory incursion on taste and 
common sense . . . either completely unintelligible, or exhibits 
only faint and dubious glimpses of meaning ... of that 
happy texture that leaves not a trace in the mind of either 
reader or hearer." 76 The Political Essays was said to mark 
the writer as a death's head hawk-moth, a creature already 
placed in a state of damnation, the drudge of The Examiner, 
the ward of Billingsgate, the slanderer of the human race, one 
of the plagues of England. 77 Later, in a discussion of Table 
Talk, 78 he becomes a " Slang-Whanger " ("a gabbler who em- 
ploys slang to amuse the rabble"). 

Hazlitt's Letter to Gifford, 1819, was a reply to all previous 
attacks of the Quarterly. For a pamphlet of eighty-seven 
pages on such a subject it is " lively reading," for Hazlitt, like 
Burke, as Mr. Birrell has remarked, excelled in a quarrel. 79 

74 Alexander Ireland has pointed out curious correspondences in the 
lives and intrests of Hazlitt and Hunt. (Memoir of Hazlitt, pp. 474-476.) 

75 Quarterly, May, 1818. 77 Ibid., July, 1819. 

78 Ibid., December, 1818. 7S Ibid., October, 1821. 

79 Birrell, William Hazlitt, New York, 1902, p. 147. 



157 

He calls Gifford a cat's paw, the Government critic, the pay- 
master of the band of Gentleman Pensioners, a nuisance, a 

" dull, envious, pragmatical, low-bred man. . . . Grown old in the service 
of corruption, he drivels on to the last with prostituted impotence and 
shameless effrontery ; salves a meagre reputation for wit, by venting the 
driblets and spleen of his wrath on others ; answers their arguments by 
confuting himself ; mistakes habitual obtuseness of intellect for a particular 
acuteness ; not to be imposed upon by shallow appearances ; unprincipled 
rancour for zealous loyalty ; and the irritable, discontented, vindictive, 
peevish effusions of bodily pain and mental imbecility for proofs of refine- 
ment of taste and strength of understanding." 80 

Blackwood's had accepted abstracts of Hazlitt's Lectures on 
the English Poets 51 from P. G. Patmore without comment and 
even managed a lengthy comparison of Jeffrey and Hazlitt 
with an approach to fair dealing. But by August, 1818, he 
had been identified with the " Cockney crew " and he became 
" that wild, black-bill Hazlitt," a " lounge in third-rate book- 
shops " ; and as a critic of Shakspere, a gander gabbling at that 
" divine swan." In April of the following year he was christ- 
ened the " Aristotle " of the Cockneys. His Table Talk pro- 
voked ten pages of vituperation, 82 and Liber Amoris, two 
reviews as coarse as the provocation. 83 In the first of these, 
apropos of his contributions to the Edinburgh Reviezv and in 
particular of his article on the Periodical Press of Britain, the 
downfall of the magazine and its editor is announced as cer- 
tain. Hazlitt is called a literary flunky, a sore, an ulcer, a poor 
devil. In the second he is Hunt's orderly, the " Mars of the 
Hampstead heavy dragoons." 

Hazlitt found relief for his feelings by threatening Black- 
wood's with a lawsuit. Yet in July, 1824, appeared an elabo- 
rate comparison of Hunt and Hazlitt in Blackwood's choicest 
manner and in March, 1825, a review of the Spirit of the Age. 

80 The Examiner of March 7 and 14, 1819, contained extracts from the 
Letter and comments by Hunt upon this " quint-essential salt of an 
epistle," as he called it. Lamb's Letter to Southey, already referred to, 
contained a defense of Hazlitt as well as of Hunt. 

"February, 1818-April, 18 19. 

82 August, 1822. 

"August, 1823; October, 1823. 



158 

After 1828 the defamatory articles ceased entirely. In 1867 
appeared what might be construed into an attempt at repara- 
tion by Bulwer-Lytton. Hazlitt was still spoken of as the 
most aggressive of the Cockneys, discourteous and unscrupu- 
lous, a bitter politician who would substitute universal submis- 
sion to Napoleon for established monarchial institutions ; but 
he is credited with strong powers of reason, of judicial criti- 
cism and of metaphysical speculation, and with perception of 
sentiment, truth and beauty. 



CHAPTER VI 
Conclusion 

It is curious that, in the lives of three such geniuses as 
Shelley, Byron and Keats a man of lesser gifts and of weaker 
fibre should have played so large a part as did Leigh Hunt. 
It is more curious in view of the fact that the period of inti- 
mate association in each case extended over only a few years. 
The explanation must be sought in the accident of the age 
and in the personality of the man himself. It was an era of 
stirring action and of strong feeling. Men were clamoring 
for freedom from the trammels of the past and were press- 
ing forward to the new day. Through the union of some of 
the qualities of the pioneer and of the prophet, Leigh Hunt 
was thrust into a position of prominence that he might not 
have gained at any other time, for he lacked the vital requisites 
of true leadership. 

His personal quality was as rare as his opportunity. He had 
a personal ascendancy, a strange fascination born of the sym- 
pathy and chivalry, the sweetness and joyousness of his nature. 
An exotic warmth and glow worked its spell upon those about 
him. Barry Cornwall said that he was a " compact of all the 
spring winds that blew." His lovableness and very " genius for 
friendship" bound intimately to him those who were thus 
attracted. There was, besides, an elusiveness and an ethereal- 
ity about him — as Carlyle expressed it — " a fine tricksy me- 
dium between the poet and the wit, half a sylph and half an 
Ariel ... a fairy fluctuating bark." The " vinous quality " 
of his mind, Hazlitt said, intoxicated those who came in contact 
with him. 

In the case of Shelley it was Hunt the man, rather than the 
writer, that held him. Charm was the magnet in a friendship 
that, in its perfection and deep intimacy, deserves to be ranked 
with the fabled ones of old — a love passing the love of woman. 

159 



160 

There is no single cloud of distrust or disloyalty in the whole 
story of their relations. 

Second to the personal tie may be ranked Hunt's influence 
on Shelley's politics, greater in this instance than in the case 
of Byron or Keats. Hunt's attitude was an important factor 
in forming Shelley's political creed. With Godwin, he drew 
Shelley's attention from the creation of imaginary universes to 
the less speculative issues of earth. Indeed, Shelley's main 
reliance for a knowledge of political happenings during many 
years, and practically his only one for the last four years of 
his life, was The Examiner. He was guided and moderated 
by it in his general attitude. In the specific instances already 
cited, the stimulus for poems or the information for prose 
tracts and articles can be directly traced to Hunt. 

In regard to literary art, Hunt did not affect Shelley beyond 
pointing the way to a freer use of the heroic couplet, and, in a 
limited degree, in four or five of his minor poems, influencing 
him in the use of a familiar diction. Only in his letters does 
Shelley show any inclination to emphasize " social enjoyments " 
or suburban delights. That the literary influence was so slight 
is not surprising when Shelley's powers of speculation and 
accurate scholarship are compared with Hunt's want of con- 
centration and shallow attainments. Notwithstanding this 
intellectual gulf, strong convictions, with a moral courage 
sufficient to support them, and a congeniality of tastes and 
temperament, made possible an ideal comradeship. 

Byron, like Shelley, was attracted by Hunt's charm of per- 
sonality. An imprisoned martyr and a persecuted editor 
appealed to Byron's love of the spectacular. Political sym- 
pathy furthered the friendship. In a literary way, Byron 
influenced Hunt more than Hunt influenced him. 

Their intercourse is the story of a pleasant acquaintance 
with a disagreeable sequel and much error on both sides. With 
two men of such varying caliber and tastes, the " wren and 
eagle " as Shelley called them, thrown together under such 
trying circumstances, it could hardly have been otherwise. 
Their love of liberty and courage of opposition were the only 
things in common. Byron recognized to the last Hunt's good 



161 

qualities and Hunt, except for the bitter years in Italy and 
immediately after his return, proclaimed Byron's genius ; but, 
for all that, they were temperamentally opposed. Byron de- 
tested Hunt's small vulgarities as much as Hunt loathed 
Byron's assumed superiority. 

The relation with Keats was the reverse of that in the other 
two cases. It was an intellectual affinity throughout. At no 
time were Keats and Hunt very close to each other. Nor, 
indeed, does Keats seem to have had the capacity for intimate 
friendship, except with his brothers and, possibly, Brown and 
Severn. 

The intercourse of the two men had its disadvantages for 
Keats in an injurious influence on his early work and in the 
public association of his name with that of Hunt's ; but the 
latter's literary patronage and loving interpretation when Keats 
was wholly unknown, the friendships made possible for him 
with others, the open home and tender care whenever needed, 
the unfailing sympathy, encouragement and admiration so 
freely given, the new fields of art, music and books opened 
up, and the pleasantness of the connection at the first, should 
more than compensate for the attacks which Keats suffered 
as a member of the Cockney School. From this view it seems 
very ungrateful of George Keats to have said that he was sorry 
that his brother's name should go down to posterity associated 
with Hunt's. Keats received far more than he gave in return. 

Briefly stated, Keats's early work shows the marked influ- 
ence of Hunt in the selection of subjects, in a love of Italian 
and older English literature, in the " domestic " touch, in the 
colloquial and feeble diction, and in the lapses of taste. It is 
only fair to Hunt to emphasize that this was not wholly a 
question of influence. It was due, as Keats himself confessed, 
to a natural affinity of gifts and tastes, though the one was so 
much more highly gifted than the other. Keats soon saw his 
mistake. Endymion showed a great improvement and the 1820 
volume an almost complete absence of his own bourgeois ten- 
dencies and of the effect of Hunt's specious theories. Yet it 
was undoubtedly through Hunt that Keats in his later poems 
began to imitate Dryden. 



162 

In connection with the work of all three poets, Hunt's criti- 
cism is a more important fact of literary history than his ser- 
vices of friendship. He had, as Bulwer-Lytton has remarked, 
the first requisite of a good critic, a good heart. He had also 
wonderful sympathy with aspiring authorship. His insight 
was most remarkable of all in the appreciation of his contem- 
poraries. With powers of critical perception that might be 
called an instinct for genius, he discovered Shelley and Keats 
and heralded them to the public. The same ability helped him 
to appreciate Byron, Hazlitt and Lamb. Browning, Tenny- 
son and Rossetti were other young poets whom he encouraged 
and supported. He defended the Lake School in 1814 when 
it still had many deriders. He anticipated Arnold's judgment 
when he wrote that " Wordsworth was a fine lettuce, with too 
many outside leaves." As early as 1832 he wrote of the 
" wonderful works of Sir Walter Scott, the remarkable criti- 
cism of Hazlitt, the magnetism of Keats, the tragedy and 
winged philosophy of Shelley, the passion of Byron, the " art 
and festivity of Moore." To value correctly such criticism it 
is necessary to remember that the Romantic movement was 
still in its first youth at the time. His criticism of the three 
men in question, like his criticisms in general, is distinguished 
by great fairness and absence of all personal jealousy, by a 
delicacy of feeling that will not be fully felt until scattered 
notes and buried prefaces are gathered together. He was 
animated chiefly by an inborn love of poetry and enjoyment of 
all beautiful things. If he sometimes fell short in under- 
standing Homer, Dante and Shakespeare, he was perfectly sin- 
cere and independent, and pretended nothing that he did not feel. 
His range of information was truly remarkable, though not deep 
and accurate. His style was slipshod. With the exception 
of the essay What is Poetry, he fails in concentration and gen- 
eralization. He never clinched his results, but was forever 
flitting from one sweet to another. His method was impres- 
sionistic in its appreciation of physical beauty. There is no 
comprehension whatsoever of mystical beauty. It is the cu- 
rious instance of a man of almost ascetic habits who revelled 
and luxuriated in the sensuous beauties of literature. The 



163 

reader of such books as Imagination and Fancy and the half 
dozen others of the same kind will see his wonderful power 
of selection. His attempt to interpret and " popularize litera- 
ture " — a cause in which he laboured long and steadfastly — 
was one of the greatest services he rendered his age, even if 
his habit of italicization and running comment for the purpose 
of calling attention to perfectly patent beauties irritated some 
of his readers. His critical taste, when exercised on the work 
of others, was almost faultless. The occasional vulgarities of 
which he was guilty in his original work do not intrude here; 
they were superficial and were not a part of the man. Through 
his criticism he discovered and championed illustrious contem- 
poraries ; he instituted the Italian revival in creative litera- 
ture in the early part of the century ; he assisted in resuscitat- 
ing the interest in sixteenth and seventeenth century literature. 
Hunt's services of friendship to Byron, Shelley and Keats, 
his able criticism and just defense of them, have found their 
reward in the inseparable association of his name with their 
immortal ones. They easily surpassed him in every depart- 
ment of writing in which they contested, yet the man was 
strong and alluring enough in his relations with them to prove 
a determining and, on the whole, beneficent influence in their 
lives. 



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